


Ça Ira

by tiny_gangster



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Age Difference, Canon Era, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of underage (vague allusions in the first chapter), references to 1789 revolution abounds, slow burn (with e/r at least), sorry for the purple prose, the violence is minimal at this point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_gangster/pseuds/tiny_gangster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He is a pretty thing, isn't he?" The voice was indiscernible, as if from far away. He was faceless. </p><p>Montparnasse choked on thick, hot scarlet, iron heavy on his tongue.</p><p>"What's that on his shirt?" Asked another, and this voice was kinder, a note of concern blanketing the weariness that clung to every facet. What could be made out of him was almost translucent in the light of the street lamp.</p><p>"Blood." Said the last, clumsy French slaughtered on his tongue in one word. All that could be seen of the third was his monstrous size. </p><p>( a fic devoted near exclusively to the Patron-Minette. With possible intervals from the Amis, mostly as they relate to Grantaire. First Chapter primary Montparnasse/Grantaire for the set up. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Formative

The first time he played death, he was only fourteen, and he’d traded one life for another. His own, for that of the man who dared to crush him for trying at his coin purse. He had gasped, writhed and kicked. He had seen red and black as if blood flowed on the backs of his eyelids in each blink. He had thrust the stiletto blade into his chest, and stained himself scarlet. He’d gotten four francs out of it. He had bought himself food enough to endure another day. He was meek, and mild, and his looks could kill in the spring, when food was scarcely shared, and all that was left to him was the dregs. He was a shadow in the evening sun, a dark spot cast on the high alley walls of Carrefour.  It would not be the last time that, in consequence, he would be deliverance.

In the summer, he burned brightest. From the open ground of the Champ de Mars he could be seen, one with the dust, as the crowds came and went with the hot September sun seeking open air. Slender fingers merely a twitch in pockets, a watch here – a franc there. He was agile, lithe, his clothes were small for him and he was exquisitely sour looking. His lips were twisted in displeasure, somewhere between a scowl and a pout. Who was this urchin that stole out of the pockets of the passer by? He wasn’t in concert, at least it didn’t seem he was. No one knew him. Those who did called him Montparnasse, like the mountain. There were so many scraggly, hollow cheeked boys that ducked through between the whalebone skirts and fitted waistcoats that this Montparnasse was easy to lose. He need only turn his pretty face up at a black robed dowager to distract her with his fine face, the summer that glinted in his eyes under thick crowns of black lashes. She would be stunned enough for him to dodge her skirts and seek other prey, stalking like a cat eyeing his next meal.

This was how he lived, barely sixteen, stealing from the pockets of the monsieur’s and the Madame’s that passed him by.  

“Do you know, you are very handsome?” One grisette would say to him on a particularly fine day, as he held a wild flower up to her by means of diversion. And the sweet lines of his face would resent her for it unto death. If he was so handsome, why would the world wish him such misfortune? For her damming sentence, he would take her boning knife and her coin purse. He began to notice how soft silk lined pockets felt against his bird-boned fingers, how velvet felt when he grazed it to thieve jewellery. He noticed the fine fit of a coat, he noticed the glint of gold as more than a target for his petty theft. He loved and loathed to feel the material against his hungry palms. He grew jealous of everything he now felt due to. Still, it was warm, mild, and a pretty child could easily find himself misplaced kindness, or wallets from which to survive.

But it could not always be summer. And winter wasn’t so forgiving. Nor where people so inclined to charity when the winter froze their longevity. He was seventeen when the coldest winter in more years than could be remembered gripped Paris. When the cobble stones became wet, and the rain turned the dust to mud, his bare feet would dirty and his hands would blacken and his cheeks would stain with the soot of the factories he took shelter in. He was a little thing, delicate and wispy and under fed to the point of making his cheeks prominent and his collar bones angular, sharp enough to look like they’d cut through his pale skin. He would push every bread scrap into his mouth, clutch every piece to his chest in his blackened little hands. He’d never been so hungry as this winter, this unforgiving December that had already seen him take his second kill in desperation to be fed. His tiny finger precise against the jugular, he’d watched the life leave a man, he’d watched the light in his eyes die perched on his chest with pleasure knowing this death would fill his stomach. He’d thought it only his due. He pried the loaf from the stranger’s cold dead hands, and he’d feasted. Death, he thought, had taught him a valuable lesson.

He was a bittered boy, and all he could think of was what the world owed him, shivering in the cold, watching his breath on the air, slumped in a filthy alley, on the filthy damp stone. He despised it, the filth. He didn’t know any different, only that when he passed bankers that they smelled of soap, and there was no grit under their nails. They had shoes on their feet. He trembled with such ferocity that it was unintelligible as to whether it was the rage seated in his chest or the cold that brought it on. His lips, already scarlet as blood, were colouring purple. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. His only chance was to be bought into a forgiving bed. He hardly had the strength to stand, and yet, he made a pretty thing of his face, bit his lips to colour, and slipped out into the streets.

He made a lovely shadow, despite how dirty, how thin he was, it was clear that there was something exquisite about him. He relied on that, he bared his neck and leaned, but he was so easy to walk past, so few would dare to be out in this cold, and none wanted company to bring with them. Certainly not a dirty waif of a starving boy.

“Monsieur, you look to want company on your walk, let me walk you.” He offered, but he was ignored, and more than once, struck with the body of a cane to the calf so he’d be back to the wall. Eyes stinging, skin burning, the boy had little to do but try, and try, and try. When the shivers garbled his already street contorted speech, he made an agonized sound. Two parts anguish, one part desperation, he pushed onward. It wasn’t until he’d stumbled along the Rue de Lappe that he found one last figure to try his luck.

“Excuse me monsieur, you are so alone out here, let me come with you.” Montparnasse purred, and the man who received it was all too aware of how young that voice sounded. He was broad shouldered, and his mop of dark hair was a mess on top of his head, his cheeks were stubbled and his nose broken. He had the smell of absinthe and wine about him. He had the look of sorrow clinging to every facet, from the disorder of his shirt, to the careless buttoning of his emerald waist coat.

“Ah, me? No, I am alone by choice, by distinction- it is my lot.” He said, and the boy could tell he was drunk, not by the colour in his cheeks, but by the way he said such a mournful thing with such bravado.

“That cannot be, every man deserves company, especially on such a night,” Montparnasse lured, coy, bated, swaying forward and then back, face turned just so to look at him through his lashes, illuminated by the flickering street lamps. He didn’t seem to be taking it, and frustration coiled in Montparnasse’s chest. He was tired of yielding to stiff backed men who came by the alley mouth whispering after him.

“You called me monsieur?”

“Is that not what you are?” Monstparnasse scoffed, indignant. The man laughed.

“You give me too much credit,” He countered. “Only Grantaire.”

“Grantaire.” Montparnasse tried it, looked to the man, tried to have him imagine other ways that might sound, other ways he might say that name. There was nothing clear in his gaze that said it had worked.

“You look frightfully cold.” Grantaire began, and Montparnasse preened under his gaze, tried to make his shivers less obvious, tried to make an elegant shape of his bony spine.

“Warm me.” He tempted, and to his credit, the man only looked pitying. That seemed to enrage the youth, he didn’t need pity. How much bread could pity buy him? Would it keep him warm? He turned on his toe. “I was mistaken, I do not want your sort of company after all.” He spat with so much venom that his tone alone was poison. An arm caught his shoulder, and their eyes met for a long silent moment. He was being appraised, but these eyes were not hungry, they didn’t devour him in a long look. They considered him, objective, slow.

“Come with me, chère, I think I do have something for you.” He offered, voice husky, not with want, but with sadness, whoever could be so sad that he was choked by it all the time? And though Montparnasse squinted, suspicious, he turned back again.  He nodded. He had nothing to lose, and he risked dying if he waited any longer with only his blanket. Grantaire grinned, but there was something broken about it. Montparnasse was cautious of broken people, they were unpredictable, he tip toed around the fragments of them, not willing to risk being sliced into himself by what was left. He looked much younger now he wasn’t trying to entice Grantaire, the way his expression sat, despite its bitterness, betrayed no knowledge, no experience of life beyond the cruelty of the Parisian streets. Grantaire held the vitality of having been everywhere, and stayed nowhere. His French was beautiful, clever, not tainted by the tongue of the alleys, of the untaught.

Montparnasse followed him without a sound, quiet as a mouse, so much so that Grantaire kept checking to see the boy hadn’t melted into the shadows and left him there. He spoke of things Montparnasse couldn’t comment on, knowing nothing about any of it. It made him feel stupid, and yet, he was enraptured by the ridiculous stories- none could be true, the man was a drunkard, and yet, as the dark haired boy stepped in tandem, he found himself making inquiries after this detail or that, all of which Grantaire provided with such richness that he couldn’t find it in himself not to believe him.

“I do not believe you.” Montparnasse said finally, earning a booming laugh from his companion.

“The best stories are not to be believed.” Grantaire said cleverly, and Montparnasse only gave him a dubious look to tell him he saw clearly through him. Silence fell finally, and Grantaire guided the boy to the step of an old building, at its entryway an angel stood, arms wide, wings flared, and head missing. Montparnasse clutched onto Grantaire’s flared sleeve at the sight of it, but the drunk paid no mind. He dragged him over the threshold, up the winding rickety staircase. The apartment that he was brought into was tiny, barely big enough to sustain the man, with the most basic amenities. Montparnasse moved to touch, the tables edge and the peeling wallpaper and the wobbly chair back. Grantaire watched him with amusement before he lit candles, produced from a cupboard some stiff paper, and charcoal.

“What are you doing?” Asked Montparnasse, again, as if the sight of Grantaire somehow personally offended him, haughtier than any street boy had right to. It only seemed to amuse the man.

“I am finding the angle which will let me best capture your handsome face.” Grantaire answered. “Come sit, so I can better look at you.”

Montparnasse expected him to be joking, he set the blanket he’d clung around his shoulders down, and then he perched, turning his head up toward Grantaire, but when they met gazes. It was as if the man looked right through him, rather than at him. He raised a hand, knuckles bruised, busted and misshapen, and he tilted Montparnasse’s head this way and that with just the tips of his fingers. The boy sat utterly silent, there was nothing in that touch, Grantaire had no such interest in him. Montparnasse was only a subject, and under the right light, he might be a stunning one.

“Perfect.” Grantaire murmured, and Montparnasse couldn’t feed his vanity with it, because he felt the statement so impartial. When Grantaire sat in the second rickety chair, he crossed one leg to support a piece of rather unassuming board. He rested his paper. And in moments, he began. Montparnasse had never been the subject of art before, he’d never sat still so long, and he wiggled on occasion, earning some kind of snicker, an arm on his shoulder turning him back the way he was. He huffed and swatted the hand, but Grantaire simply grinned a lopsided thing at him, and put the charcoal to paper again.

Montparnasse found the medium between statue and living boy, sat as if marble, breathing softly, warmer for not being so wet, warmer for the occasional laughter that he earned from the artist who sat across from him. He wasn’t fond, he didn’t find himself attached to any one person. But Grantaire was an easy creature, and his fervent admiration of Montparnasse to capture in still life made the younger quite proud of his fortunate looks. He was staring into emptiness so long that the next time Grantaire touched his shoulder, chalky black residue was pressed into his filthy shirt.

“I am very near done with you.” He said, and Montparnasse’s expression was dangerous for a moment before Grantaire went on, either not minding, or ignoring it altogether. “You go lie down, I can finish without seeing you.” He added, and Montparnasse cast a longing look toward the bed. He looked down at himself, at the filth that he was covered in. Grantaire made no comment, and so the boy rose, he crossed the floor, and he fell into bed. He kicked the blankets around without regard and hid himself under them. They provided little warmth at first, but he wasn’t cold either. He peered out at Grantaire, with his charcoal stained fingers, and his contemplative face that seemed both gleeful and irrevocably sad. Montparnasse had seen this sort of a man before, he was no stranger to what agony looked like.

“Why are you so dreadful looking?” The boy boldly asked, and Grantaire raised his head, a brow cocked, peering at Montparnasse where he’d disappeared in Grantaire’s own bed.

“Am I so hideous? I prefer distinguished over dreadful.” He replied, again in jest, but Montparnasse shook his head.

“I mean that you are troubled.” Montparnasse corrected coldly. And Grantaire hummed.

“I never was told your name, that’s all.” He replied by way of diversion, but Montparnasse wasn’t deceived, he ran his fingers through his ebony locks, red lips leering.

“Montparnasse.” He answered, lip still curled in disdain, as if it were a privilege for Grantaire to know his name at all.

“Well,” Grantaire started, “Montparnasse, when one day you are older, you will know this particular anguish.”

“And what is that?” Asked he, sitting up, head propped on the palm of his hand, elbow resting against the bed.

“The all-consuming pain of love.” Grantaire sighed, longing in abundance now. “Can any one creature be as fair Apollo?”

“Only Dionysus.” Came his reply. Earning Grantaire’s raised brow. “Love,” Snickered the youth in disdain, rolling onto his back, eyes falling closed. “I will not fall victim to such frivolous things.”

“Pray not.” Grantaire grinned, unfazed by the apparent cruelty of Montparnasse’s decree. The two sat in comfortable silence, and to the vague scratch of charcoal against paper, Montparnasse was lulled to sleep.  Grantaire watched him, the curve of his lips, the way they fell apart now in sleep, flushed, red as though bit to fullness. He sighed, setting down his paper before he rose to his feet, adjusting the blanket over the boy.

“And what of you, Parnassus? Are you not sacred to both Apollo and Dionysus? Are you not fair?” He teased, whimsical, amused by himself as he stroked back a few dark locks of hair. He moved to the table again then, and he picked up his charcoal again, rubbing his cheeks without care for the smudges his fingertips left behind.

It became a regular exchange; Grantaire’s bed for Montparnasse’s pretty face. He spent hours detailing him, in one pose or another, it was a delight to sketch another lovely face, knowing the features were different, knowing that the glow was less that given off by a halo, and more the reflection given from broken glass. Something flickering behind Montparnasse’s eyes that told Grantaire they shared in something; pain.

He would ruffle the boy’s hair and let him go in the morning. It was easy, they were a pair of strangers; but they exchanged words as if they knew each other. And soon they knew enough not to ask certain questions, not to prod certain points. Montparnasse knew that Grantaire knew every word of the Sans-Culotte’s deathly ballad, that he’d learned it from his grandfather, who’d raised him. Who’d taught him –or, perhaps driven him- to drink. Grantaire knew that Montparnasse was an orphan, and that he was bitterly poor, and Grantaire wasn’t to comment on it, or offer any unreasonable charity to him because of his unseemly pride. They had found a staccato rhythm.


	2. The Undertaking

On the lesser streets of Paris, and on the docks as far as Bordeaux. Three quiet names could be heard, always in the same orders, linked one after the other. They worked rather well, the three of them. One was the heart, the head, and the brawn. They had mechanised crime, they knew the streets as if they’d had them memorized from birth, born with Paris etched into their skulls. They were lacking but one thing, and though none could put their finger on what that was, they compensated for it. Their time was night, but not in exclusivity. One kept awake in the day; one rose in the morning, and picked at stale bread, and tucked one leg over the other and opened the most recent newspaper his knobbly fingers could find. He skimmed it, he hummed over the politics, erred over political sketches, snickered at the more abysmal editorials printed in balking black ink. Had he been born on the other side of Paris; he would have been a doctor. But he hadn’t been, and for his troubles; he was not a thief. Circumstance had taken his wife, coincidence had claimed his children.

Babet was jaunty, animated, and restless. He had grey in his hair, he had gaunt high cheeks bones and circles under his eyes. He was not quite so old as he appeared. Crime and loss had aged him. He wasn’t the leader, but he was clever, sharp as a knife’s edge and content with his lot. He was a master of many things, none that he could boast a degree for, though where he lived, they carried more credibility than any piece of paper. He had a kindly soft voice, one that turned shrill with anger, but such outbursts were a rarity. Composure was built into him as a rib or a femur. The same could not always be said of the other two of his tricolore. His red and his blue.

The first, the red. Claquesous, had a dangerous temper. He was coiled like a viper. He was quick, poisonous, and he always left death in his wake without mercy. The streets had done to this infamous shadow more agony than a man could bare. He paid Paris for its trouble in blood. He was efficient, quick, he didn’t toy; he didn’t play with his meal. He devoured. He left nothing behind.

The second, the blue. Gueulemer, was stupid. Or at least, by most of the educated class standard. But Babet had never thought so. The man might not have been what was conventionally clever, but he had a way, an instinct. There was something about Gueulemer that made a shiver rise in any Parisian he walked by. He carried some evil of the terror with him, as if his hands were drenched in the sacrifice of the guillotines. This made him invaluable to them.

And yet, they were to some degree unfinished.

Their den was empty this afternoon, devoid of stolen things to sell, with two of three sleeping to wait for night. Babet was alone at the rickety table, with his two week old newspaper, and a sigh on his lips, spectacles perched on his nose as he peered wearily through them. He would got out, he would find the newest paper. This one he’d read thrice already. He didn’t know what day it was anymore, but it certainly wasn’t the one printed in the top corner.

Babet got to his feet, and he picked up his cane –his cane, now, at least- and he slipped on his old coat. And he left his spectacles on the crumpled, thumbed paper. No one would suspect him in the light of day, he looked like a poor working man, who had the wife he’d lost, the children he’d misplaced. He would appear every bit the life he’d had before. Crime was not visible on Babet.

He was passing the factories when he saw him, slight, beautiful under the light of the sun, and he had a newspaper clutched in his hand. He had a glint in his eye that made the man stop, there was something very clever in that look, something lethal. He’d seen that look only once, before a mask had been tied over it. And it had disappeared behind the empty look on the porcelain. Babet made over to him with a kindly smile on his lips.

“You there, boy, are you selling?” He asked, indicating the newspaper. Those cat eyes brightened.

“I am, this inflation monsieur, don’t you know, it has made them impossible to sell.” He began, a theatrical sigh on his lips. He was good. Very good. But the mess on his cheeks was a little too uneven, it showed his artistry to the keener eye. The boy was looking to foil him, and Babet admired him for it. His eyes twinkled.

“Has it? How much for then?” He asked, digging his hand into his pocket, producing his purse to entice, to demonstrate his willingness.

“A franc.” He said defiantly, and Babet chuckled.

“A franc, mon cher, you are selling in the wrong section.” He chided, “It must be quite the story,” He said, and for a moment, he looked like trouble. “What is the story on the front? I want to know what I buy beforehand, you know, a man such myself hardly comes across such money to spend on paper and ink.”

The boy screwed his nose up, and he looked at the page. It meant nothing to him. Anything could’ve been on it, it wouldn’t make any more sense to him. Babet looked as if he’d caught him out in a lie. “Why do you not read for yourself?” He offered, holding it up.

Babet clicked his tongue. “I’ve not got my spectacles, child, I could not tell you.” He said sincerely, a spindly hand over his heart. Anger crossed the boy’s face now.

“You only wish to taunt, take your words somewhere else, old fool. I do not have time for the likes of you.” He spat, and Babet looked simply delighted.

“You need only say you cannot read, I would not be in the slightest surprised.” Babet said kindly, earning a snarl.

“I am not stupid.” The words were laced with venom.

“That is not what I accused you of.” Babet pointed out. There was silent stretching, the boy and his paper, Babet and is cane. He looked wearily at the other’s young face, and he took the newspaper. “See this here?” Babet began, and the boy looked dubiously at his finger on the top of the front page, and nodded. “If it begins with this, it might sell, see these two words. Do you know what they might say? It hardly matters, memorize how they look. If this is not always at the very top, you’ll not make a coin.” He directed.

The boy nodded. “You can read.”

“I can.” Babet conceded, handing the newspaper back to him.

“Who are you?” Asked the younger, his head cocked, his brows drawn together.

“Who am I? I am nobody, but if you wish to call me anything, best it be Babet.” He replied, offering his hand to him now empty. “To whom do I owe the pleasure of acquaintance?”

“Montparnasse.” Answered he, as he took Babet’s hand. And the man’s blood seemed to cool. Montparnasse, the child-killer, he’d heard of his kills, he’d heard of him; yes. And Montparnasse seemed to know he must’ve. He seemed to know he had a name made. He ought to have known, few faces like that could be unscathed without great effort.

“It’s been a pleasure to know you finally by face too.” Babet said, withdrawing his hand, setting it in his old coat pocket. “I’m afraid I have business I must attend to. Remember what I’ve said, Montprnasse.” Babet was particularly troubled by that boy as he turned to go. He was so young, younger still in person. And he was dirty, even if it was part of his act. And he was skinny beyond explanation.  Whatever was left of the father in Babet seemed to hurt for him, but the criminal in him was operating on very different morals. It saw use in him.

He never found his newspaper, instead, he found a long walk, a long debate spread before his very eyes, weighing value. Another mouth to feed. But it would pay for itself. He decided not to think it, no executive decision could be made until Claquesous had risen finally from his day-long slumber. He waited in his chair, hands folded. And when he heard footsteps, not Claquesous but Gueulemer, he turned. “I’ve met someone today.” He began, and the two of them listened. And for a moment, Babet thought he saw the shadow of a smile on Claquesous’ stationary lips.

They left their apartment as they did always, stripped bare. Hardly a thing to make it recognizable beyond the rest. Nothing notable, nothing valuable. They would choose their target, and they would make quick work of it. They would hold onto nothing more than a day, they would let nothing tie them to their crime, they would leave no trace. That was ever the plan, they dared not deviate, or risk the fall of the foundation, jeopardize the future of the empire.

Tonight they deviated from the plan. But there was no danger in it. No crime was committed by their hand. They’d taken themselves up in an alley when first they heard it. A blood curdling scream, high pitched, agonized. They might ignore it, if it didn’t risk them being caught nearby it. It sounded close, too close for comfort, and when Claquesous moved to disappear into the shadows Babet boldly caught his shoulder. “Wait,” He began, “Listen.”

And so, they listened. There was not another scream, but there came instead that awful sound of fists against flesh. Of gurgling. Someone was being killed. Gueulemer huffed.

“Who do you think?” He asked, turning his head to Claquesous, and Babet respectively. Neither knew, and neither answered. Soon the sound stopped, footsteps could be heard, many of them, running at break neck pace. The trio stood in utter silence.

“Four?” Claquesous said, barely audibly.

“Four.” Babet agreed.

They faced a dilemma then. Did they dare to investiage, or did they run? The night was void now, they were too close to this to make good of anything else. They all silently came to an agreement; they would go and they would see. Babet went first, as the most unassuming. But when it became clear there was not guard in sight, not an officer. Claquesous pushed ahead. What they found at the mouth of the alley was a battered body bathed in the half-light. Struggling. Clothes slightly torn, hair a mess, face turned up in anger.

It trembled, cherry lips stained with a trickle of blood. His green eyes were burning. He was shaking, a hand pressed to his side. His vision swam, but some part of Montparnasse had the sense to coil away from the figures.

“Come to finish me off?” He spat. And though his vision swam, he raised his bloodied fist in the darkness, as if it might protect him from the onslaught. The three of them seemed to realise who he was all at once. They exchanged looks. This was either fate, or some foul devil at play.

"He is a pretty thing, isn't he?" The voice was indiscernible, as if from far away. He was faceless.

Montparnasse choked on thick, hot scarlet, iron heavy on his tongue.

"What's that on his shirt?" Asked another, and this voice was kinder, a note of concern blanketing the weariness that clung to every facet. What could be made out of him was almost translucent in the light of the street lamp.

"Blood." Said the last, clumsy French slaughtered on his tongue in one word. All that could be seen of the third was his monstrous size.

Regardless of the outcome. Babet looked to Gueulemer, and the herculean creature bent double, and even as Montparnasse bashed a fist wildly against his chest, his fight was unmet. He was settled in the man’s arms, and the longer Montparnasse fought, the more he bled, the more he weakened. Claquesous watched him with particular interest. Babet counted that bad news, but soon, the dandy’s young face paled. And his eyes closed. He had a cut, Babet could see it when his hand fell, it wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding the boy quickly, all skin and bones and blood, with so little he could afford to lose.

Claquesous pried a soft glove from his hand, and without a word he pressed it to the boy’s side to catch his bleeding. There was not another word spoken when they took him home, not as they laid him on Babet’s own mattress, and tended to his wounds as if he were their own. They considered this induction. A baptism by blood. They each had stumbled one into the other. Montparnasse had crashed. They would make use of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be more of the other Patron's in the next few chapters! This one was fairly Babet-centric. But he's one of my favorites. I have a lot of time for Babet. Forgive me mistakes in this I'm posting at 1am. I'll review it critically later. 
> 
> More Montparnasse/Grantaire. And the amis in the next chapter! Thank you for reading, for kudos, bookmarks, and reviews, every little bit motivates me a bit more!


	3. Rebirth

The very foundations shook. From that delicate throat a scream was wrought. The sheets were sweat soaked, and they rolled as if the ocean when the body beneath it writhed. He was feverish, rabid, grasping at his bed clothes trying to wrestle himself free. If only he were dreaming, but the boys eyes were wide. Everything seemed to be closing in on him, and there was scarlet spreading on his shirt where he’d broken open his wound thrashing for life.

“Can’t you shut that child of yours up? He is your stray.” Asked a soft voice, barely there, thick with an extravagance of tone afforded only the old nobles and the bourgeoisie. Irritation gave the words the same sharpness a blade’s edge would.

With all the compassion only a father could possess, Babet knelt down on the edge of the mattress. His grey eyes were wide, his spectacles were askew and his sleeves rolled. His fingers were pink-red at the tips, as if they’d been pressed by blood before already, and he hadn’t cleaned them yet. He hushed, and he quieted, and he restrained those flailing wrists with the help of his second, more amenable friend. Gueulemer was firm, but upon prompt from Babet, he was gentle.

“Hush, child, quiet now, easy does it. Why do you not just lay down again?” He urged, fingers stroking through sweaty dark locks. Montparnasse grew more savage, and Claquesous laughed; a cold disembodied sound. Or where his ears playing tricks? Montparnasse didn’t sound to be saying anything intelligible. His gaze searched, tried to find the face

There was no face, his back was to them. There was a scarlet ribbon tied at the back of his head. Montparnasse gasped for air as if he’d been holding it.

“Grantaire.” He forced out, fingers curling, “Grantaire.” He repeated as his fists turned pale white, ghostly as his gaunt young face. “Where’s…” He looked among the faces. They were not familiar, they seemed foreign to him. He knew no other name to utter.

“Who?” Babet inquired, watching as the boy’s limbs began to become limp. Gueulemer relented his hold, drawing back, his stone expression so usually hardened softening. But Montparnasse would not repeat it, he only turned his head away. And when his eyes fluttered shut in exhaustion, Babet made a better bandage for him. The bleeding was staunched again and the wound was painstakingly stitched. The boy didn’t scream at that, it seemed physical pain was a concession. Nor did he speak again.

Claquesous turned his head, eyes flickering to drink him in. His lips were bruised as if with a kiss, and his neck had marks as if a beast had snapped its jaws shy of his skin. He was flushed from the effort of fighting the hands that had bound him. He was ethereal. No one stirred as this quiet assessment was made.

Hours passed like this, hours that seemed days. Until finally the fever broke. Despite his coolness, even Claquesous only resigned to retire when his temperature petered, and his survival was assured. Babet stayed, he cleansed his fingers, and he spread the pages of his newspaper in his bandy legged lap. He read to him, what did a boy that age care about? Not the news, but he seemed soothed by the sound, whenever he came to pause he would stir. And so, Babet would read. Perhaps he was more sentimental than he would let on, he couldn’t even take a gander at the age his own son might be. Much older than this, and he was much younger when first he was misplaced after all, so there was no reason for his behaviour only that something about that face seemed to crumble the man.

There was such exquisite beauty in that face as it lay undisturbed in sleep. He could see the leer that had taken his lips in being awake, the way that misery made him tense to pounce. The first stirrings of consciousness didn’t strike until mid-day. As soon as those eyes perceived the world not in the red fever haze of before, his expression took to distaste as if to protect itself. There was something fragile beneath it. It was fear. He did not dare sit up, he must be aware of the stretch his skin made with a quick movement. The viper had been pacified.

He looked at Babet.

“You.” That was the first word that came to him, and Babet laughed- no, it was not a laugh, it was a chortle.  Montparnasse pressed a hand to his eyes, the dimness gave him recollection. “There were three of you.” He began, his breath hitched. He tried to recall them exactly, only strong arms and red ribbon came. A mask, a stoic face so unmoving it seemed as good as one, tanned and stretched. Babet was only one among three, he was certain there that night, three there had been.

“Yes, me. And you, too.” Deft fingers closed the newspaper, rolled it to a cylinder and soon it became a tool to gesticulate. He pointed at him. “Three? Is there? Right now there is only myself and you here.”

“What do you mean?” Growled the youth, clearly far too vexed to put up with any word play. He saw the porcelain lips, the dark holes where no eyes seemed to pierce through. It was plain, and somehow, hideous. “I don’t know what sort of a game you think this is, but I want no part of it.”

Babet took pity on him, he found himself doing a great deal of that. “How do you feel, my boy? You’ve been raving all night, only this morning did you come to any clarity.”

Montparnasse sat up, he didn’t gasp, though his red lips pressed tightly together to prevent such a movement, and when he spoke next his words were vaguely breathy.  “Well, thank you.” What charming words to come from that obscene mouth.  Where had he learned manners? Babet guessed he’d picked it up, a little trick for an extra coin here or there. It was a clever trick.

“Very good, I have a friend who will be very pleased to hear it.”

Scarlet ribbon seemed to pass through his fingers, and the ghost of a laugh echoed in his ears. He shuddered at the memory of that spectre. He licked his lips and shifted so he might support himself, elbow rested on the bed. “So there are more of you.” He said slyly, and Babet chuckled. He flourished his paper, brows animatedly raised as he leaned – or more, jostled – himself forward.

“Do you know, you’re quite clever for such a young thing.” He complimented, and Montparnasse seemed not to believe him. He looked on sceptically. His eyes scanned to the newspaper in Babet’s hand.

“Where did you get that?” He asked, and Babet was caught off kilter. He balked at the paper in his hands as if it were a foreign object or a deathly apparition, he let it rest in his lap.

“I seem to simply acquire things, Montparnasse, I cannot remember how I came to it. Why do you ask?” Babet swept the broadsheets into his knobby fingers once more. Montparnasse leaned forward and tapped a tremulous finger to its front page.

“It’s not got the mark, you’ve been duped.” Those words were bitten out, a bitter little victory. To Babet’s surprise, it carried no such stamp of authentication to which he’d taught the boy only yesterday. The man looked enraptured for a fleeting moment.

“Why, no, it hasn’t has it? More the fool am I.” Babet let the paper find the floor. Montparnasse’s jade-stone orbs tracked it for a moment, head tilted. The older was more interested in judging the boy’s expression as his lips trembled over a sound, framing a word.  “Would you like to know what it says?” Babet ventured.

Montparnasse looked up at him. Silence fell. And then, as if considering, eyes squinted; he nodded. Babet pointed at the first word.

“I’ll help you decipher it for yourself. Are you ready?”

Again, a nod.

\---

The sun seemed to enliven him, but by the rise of the moon the boy would wither. He was a rose that opened and closed against the elements. When the temperatures dropped his body seemed to struggle, food wouldn’t stay down. And Babet thought woefully he must be going to die, and was simply too stubbornly to accept so. Perhaps lead poisoning. Or perhaps, it had been the beating. Or, more likely, he was simply ill and no matter what they did, he might die. Claquesous told him not to become fond, and yet the man himself seemed to linger over the shivering boy sweating through his sheets. Many nights passed thus. It became impossible to deny the pressing weight. Not one spoke of it, but as they left when the moon took the sky, and made their return when the business was done, a silent decision would be made as to which would see he was still alive when first they came home. The weight was an even distribution at first. But on the fifth night, rather than Gueulemer assuming his duty Claquesous took to it again. None questioned it, and it seemed decided he would do so when they crept back into their apartment on the Rue Bellievre.

He knelt by the mattress. At first glance he thought the boy must have gone since they’d left. But when he reached out to touch the inside of his wrist where it rested on the pillow he jerked. He rasped a breath. Claquesous reached into the pocket of his coat, and from it he produced a bracelet, dripping with gold and emeralds. He fastened the weight of it around his wrist. Montparnasse could not understand the touch, there was no warmth of skin. Only he faint brush of silk, and then the heavy weight and the cold press of a fine metal. His eyes weakly flickered to it, watched as the candle lights flicker reflected in the cut of the stones.

“Pretty, is it not?”  Mused Claquesous, Montparnasse’s eyes tracked to him slowly, gaze caught in his lashes as his lids heavied. He was so close, so tangible. The boy’s fingers curled against the pillow. If he only had the strength to reach for him. “A gift for you, ma cherie, your cut of the night’s dealings.”

He tried to rise, but the man’s insistent hand came to rest on his shoulder. He tutted. Montparnasse gave a long blink. His lips fell apart, desperate to form words, but none came to him. “No no, you must be still. We have no use of you like this.”

Without comprehension, with no such acceptance. Three became four that night. Montparnasse was folded into their ranks as easily as flour and water.

\---

When it became apparent he may not die, rest finally came to Babet again. He no longer felt that fearful jitter come over him. The first time the boy stood of his own steam, the first time he cussed, and swatted, and growled again, it flooded the man with such relief that he was overwhelmed. He’d become attached to him as an invalid, but as a living, breathing boy, he liked him far more. It was just such a morning when those high cheek bones became haughty, and those lips formed a miserable pout, and he got to his feet of his own volition, that Babet realised Montparnasse was more an elusive creature when mobile.

“I’ll be on my way just as quickly as you’ll let me have my clothes back.” He’d said, pushing the blankets away, making a steadfast tugs at the shirt he was swimming in, one of Gueulemer’s own, riddled with imperfections at the seams, the white now complimented with faded red.

“Much easier said than done.” Babet’s reading material –a pamphlet this morning- swept the dingy, poorly lit room. Montparnasse’s fingernails bit half-moons into his palms. His movements were strung as if on string, tugged, taught as if he’d been raised a prey animal and not a human being at all.  Before he could protest, Babet rose to his feet and picked from the table, as if waiting just for this moment. Those clothes were not his clothes. But what caught his eye most of it all was the black coat, it was fitted and finely made. It wasn’t new, but it was the closest to new he ever had laid two eyes on. The gold and emerald fastened at his wrist slid, reminded him of the taste of food and the feeling of silk and the swell in his chest that came with riches.

“These are not mine.” He said, plainly.

Babet answered very calmly. “Aren’t they? I beg to differ.”

“I don’t need your charity, I am perfectly well without you.” Pride made him say that, even as his fingers began to tremble against the velvet that lined the pockets. Oh, but it was a beautiful coat. It was beautiful. And he would look beautiful in it. His head was giddy at the idea of wearing it. He closed his eyes, his fingers curling to clutch the coat to his chest. He couldn’t make himself set it down.

“No, no of course not.” Babet got to his feet. He ran fingers through his hair. He looked weary, but to the trained eye of Montparnasse, it seemed a farce. Almost too good to be so. “Though if you plan to leave, you’re best to put it all on, aren’t you?” He stretched, he yawned. All were gestures that could’ve been practiced. Though they seemed genuine, perhaps Montparnasse judged harshly to think it an act. “One more thing for you,” Babet turned once more, his expression somewhat more severe. “We consider this a favour, and you know what it’s like out there… how valuable a favour can be.” He raised his hand, he tapped the tip of his hook nose. “We will ask for ours back, and you will comply. A man has only his word on these streets.”

That was menacing, but Montparnasse felt no threat, he was too stubborn to see the sign in it. Nothing came for free. He had sold his soul once, and once more- what was a third time? He held the coat to his chest, consumed by silence.

“I thought you must understand, good boy.” Babet’s smile became knowing more than weary and he drew away, moving to another door, the rusted knob caught in his fingers. “If ever you’re in need. You know where you’ll find us.”

“You will need me before I have any need of you.” The boy spat with such venom that had Babet been any less a calm man, it might’ve stirred some retaliation for its daring. But instead the boy’s spirit warmed the man to his bones. A delight, he was a delight. “Turn away.” He commanded, a snap in his tone. Babet did him the courtesy of leaving the room, slipping into a pitch black side room.

Montparnasse waited, and when it seemed he was making no return. He stood. He stripped himself of the worn shirt, felt the material catch on gold at his wrist as he tore it from his body. His fingers grazed the new scar. At only eighteen, his body was a road map of neglect. His skin detailed the pain of a street gamin, of the misfortunate that befell only pretty faced children left alone at night in the withering cold. He stepped into his trousers. His fingers tugged the shirt gently over his shoulders. He gasped at the way the material felt. It was pressed, and soft, and it caressed him. He closed his eyes, ran his frenzied, hungry fingers from the sleeve to the shoulder, down his chest. Next, the cravat. He had never tied one, and he was clumsy, and left it in a haphazard place at his neck beneath the high collar. The coat fit him as a glove. He turned his face into the collar and felt the material brush it. He eyed the boots lined at the door, he tested each until he found a pair that best fit him. A hat, how could he be expected to go without a hat? He looked to those next, he chose one that had one side curled upward, pressed, worked by a hand into that fashion. It was Babet’s, he recognized it, and he took pleasure in knowing he was taking it.

All of this was but an echo to the three men in their darkened room. Nothing but their own breaths and the creak of the floorboard a wall away from them for company.

“He will come back.” One said, his voice barely there. Punctuated by the slamming of the front door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long! (This ones for you, Zanny, and for PollyProuvaire, who I promised an update to... last weekend. My bad!) As always, thank you so much for reading. And thank you so much for reviews/tumblr messages/kudos etc! It means so much to me.


	4. Reunion

The window panes were grimy, but not so much that they obscured the treasures to behold on the other side of them. Elegant frocks, tailored coats, hats in the latest fashion. Ladies bonnets and scarves. Gloves of leather. Gloves of silk and of other delicate materials that the beholder could not name. Paris green eyes – emerald as the poisonous dye colouring a decorative bustle – swept hungrily over each item individually. No one piece was free of his scrutiny. Greedy hands pressed to the glass and nails curled against it, so beautiful. So beautiful in fact that he could all but feel the loose stitching in his newly acquired coat and the worn hem of his trousers. What it would be to own a coat like these – made for him, out of something soft. He eyed the sprawling gowns, he imagined undressing the mannequins, undressing the girls who flitted on the shop floor, just to feel the fineness of the garment. The idea sent a frisson down his curved spine. They were tapered at the waist, so slender there, he examined the cut of his own figure with a dismal sigh. He was not so shapely. How was it achieved?

The dandy – or so he desired to be – was lying in wait. Word had been delivered to him by a man he had not known, nor could he now recall, asking that he be now precisely where he stood on this day. When he had asked from whom the directions originated the burly man had simply turned away. The purpose of his being there was all but forgotten now, his mind otherwise occupied. This was the way of criminals and of other vile unspeakables of the lower echelons.

His revelry was disturbed. There was a second reflection beside his own in the dirty glass. A girl, perhaps a foot shorter than he, her mousy locks a tousled mess on her head. Another miserable wretch. But she was beguiling; quite pretty to him, in a miserable way. In the way that people who took pleasure from knowing they weren’t alone in suffering could find themselves charmed to see the same in another face. She was looking where he was looking. She was looking at him.

“What do you want?” He snapped at her, turning away from his self-commiseration to set eyes on her. Taupe, common eyes looked back at him.

“Are you watching those women? Or are you looking at the clothes?” The girl asked him. She was not afraid of him, the world had done to this little creature all that it could do and now she was unafraid. It was not stupidity that fed her bravado, it was acceptance. Her clothes were in a state worse than his. Her bodice ripped, chemise so filthy as to make its original character and shade indeterminate.  Her feet were bare, and clutched in her hand was a stiff piece of parchment paper torn from a book, the black title still pressed to its underside.

“What could the women interest me with?” Montparnasse laughed cruelly, but it rang with the quality of a soft bell. A question for a question for a question. “And you, what are you looking at?”

“You.” She replied simply, those daring eyes, those thin lips screwed up to examine him. Montparnasse was both impressed and vaguely put off by such a statement. He adjusted his collar, as if he possessed any right to be indignant. As if they were not cut of the same poor cloth. She swayed and the torn material of her skirt dragged across the filthy cobbles. She ought to have disgusted him. Dirty, impudent. But she did not. There was between these sorts an understanding, one that only the poorest of the poor could strike up. It was not unlike comradery.

“Take your interest elsewhere, I am not a subject for your deliberation.” He had come across this very phrase not so long ago, had heard it from the lips of a gentlemen he had been trying to charm into pitying him, or perhaps in taking to him. Though Montparnasse now leered at her curiosity, he so loved to be loved. He so craved the validation, the attention of being admired.

“You would look fine in that coat, I think. Don’t you think?” She spoke poorly, youth or a lack of education Montparnasse didn’t bother to assume. Both, he thought. She was younger than him. His junior by perhaps a year or two. Perhaps more. Her figure was nothing but skin stretched over bone. It disguised her.

He followed her beady eyed gaze to fix on the particular piece, the sleeves were exaggerated in a style he couldn’t take to. So she did not have the same eye for finery as he. She admired at the surface only, with no real covetous desire for shape or form, simply for riches. Any poor child that said they had no want of these things was a liar in the boy’s experience.

“I suppose.” Replied Montparnasse. The air of superiority in his tone denoting his opinion on it. She was irked by that, and her scoffing return only served to endear her all the more strongly.

“It would not matter whether you supposed or not, it’s a gentlemen’s coat. You are not a gentlemen. You will never wear it.” When this girl let her eyes come back to it, they were longing. This was not the desire for the material itself, but for something else it seemed to represent to her. A gentleman. Perhaps she was not so much younger than himself, after all.

“What are you called?” Montparnasse ventured to ask, not knowing whether he would set eyes on the doleful little mite again.

“Éponine.” Came her reply. Montparnasse seemed to know the name. The Jondrette. The Thénardier. So this was her, that calamitous beggar girl. The sort that a man was taught to clutch his pockets in the presence of in fear she might drag him so to pity he would spill the contents onto her in a frenzy.

“You do not want to know my name?” He questioned, affronted at her seeming wane in interest. She simply got a wild look about her, face animated, amusement sketched into the lines of it.

“I already know your name. You’ve done a poor job keeping quiet about it.” She was pleased with herself, this Thénardier girl. She had such few pleasures in life that Montparnasse was moved to his own charity in letting her keep it. This was the danger he had aforementioned. He clicked his tongue at her nonetheless, his eyes sweeping back to the display. She was a lady, was she not? And in what limited experience he had, a ladies affection could be bought into by charm and lavishing. By that logic alone she must see something in the window to admire.

“And you are not at all moved, Éponine,” As he had done to Grantaire, he worked her name on his tongue. She was not unaffected. Good. “By anything you see.”

Though he knew that her gaze was not honest in its appraisal – for it was a reappraisal, she was poor, and a young lady, he reasoned, therefore, she must have taken liking to something. “The blue.” She decided. Montparnasse tracked her gaze. It was magnificent indeed, she had chosen respectably. He nodded his approval. The mannequin wore it gracefully, effortlessly, with ribbons tied in a colour to match at the wrist, and the neck, likely to entice the buyer to purchase them from the tailor’s materials.

Perhaps to try his luck at charm, or in an action of misplaced solidarity he slipped by her. The shopmen in question was occupied serving an older gentlemen and his absurdly golden headed child when he made his silent entrance. He passed the display quite casually. Only the girl left behind the glass could track his movements, they seized upon the blue silken strand tied to the wrist and no sooner had he seized it than did he slip it into his coat pocket.

“One moment, monsieur.” The keeper called to him, hazarding only a glance. Montparnasse tipped his hat and turned gracefully on the ball of his foot. He left. And once he was on the other side, he produced the ribbon again, tying it then delicately around Éponine’s wrist. She laughed, it was a rough sound. But her mirth seemed to please him.

“Madame.” He bowed, it was performative to him, and she gave him his due applause, responding with a parody curtsy that dragged her filthy hem across damp stone again.

There was a moment where the two merely studied each other as certain young people tended to. Finding the features that might attract them, deciding whether they were quite enough. To Montparnasse, certainly they were. To be in possession for even a moment, of some imagined delicacy, would suffice. It was inconclusive on her side. An amicable parting, then. She clutched her letter to her chest. The sapphire ribbon tied to one wrist contrasted against the almond tone of her skin.

“Goodbye, then.” Montparnasse gave the curious creature her exit. Éponine took it, she didn’t say goodbye. Perhaps it was a habit of hers to part inexplicably. Regardless of peculiarities he watched her go. She did not walk, she did everything as if in a hurry. Her bare feet beat against the pavement with great urgency. 

The moment had been brief, but the impact profound. For a moment, he found himself admiring the coat with the exaggeration in the shoulders. What had she meant, he would never wear it? What kept him from being a gentlemen but the money? Money could be got. He felt the heavy weight of gold under his sleeve. Acquired. Gifted to him by his mysterious Patron. He had no prospects, no parentage or title to make him such and such of so and so. But he needed none of those things.

He had no way of knowing how long he remained there, letting the girls words slither beneath his skin and remain there. He recalled the grisette. Girls could destroy a man with their callous words, he thought. It was why men went mad for them.  

Original purpose forgotten, Montparnasse turned to leave and found himself in the shadow of a man taller and broader than any man he had yet seen. The boy balked for only a moment before dawning comprehension came to him. His face became momentarily pale. The leathery face, deep set eyes, cropped locks. Gueulemer. The man had the set of the shoulders that sang violence, but his movements were inconsistent with it. The boy was pretty, and as all lumbering creatures were in the sight of something they regarded he was mild.

“Is this the favour?” Montparnasse questioned. Was he being recalled? Gueulemer shook his head. He looked to see who was paying them mind and found a few gazes linger. The man had a squint that told the fop his companion did not frequent the daylight.

“Not as such.” They were proper words from an improper, crooked mouth. His emphasis was practically provincial, or perhaps, even colonial.

“Then what? I’d rather not be bothered if it’s all the same to you.” Montparnasse smoothed the line of his coat as if he hadn’t acquired it by them – by his lot. As if he hadn’t been carried in those arms to safety from certain death. Gueulemer’s stained teeth made an appearance over his lip.

“There’s money in it for you, if you can count it.”

Montparnasse’s fingers twitched. He spared a final glance at Éponine’s coat. “I can count it.”

\---

The place that Gueulemer took him was a den. The stench was foul and looked still yet fouler. The walls were dank, and the floors groaned and creaked under the shuffling worn boots that scuffed its surface and muddied it. Montparnasse was crushed by the ever churning sea of bodies. Bodies that smelled of smoke and wine, that smelled of soot and sweat. The scent of the decrepit, desperate poor. All the room was arranged around a pit, embedded in the floor by partitions of the same inexpensive timber. Montparnasse had never seen, but only heard of such places.

They were for betting, for putting money on Paris street kicking. La Savate. In all the excitement, the crushing wave of the great unwashed, he almost suffocated. If the strong arm of Gueulemer hadn’t freed him he may have been crushed beneath them. He was yanked to a bench at a side. In his hands, petty cash was put. The entire exchange confused him, could he not simply make off with this now? A measly cut to be sure, but a cut nonetheless? It was the promise of more that kept him still. Perhaps Gueulemer was not as stupid as Montparnasse had thought.

The man removed his shirt, leaving it draped across the dandy’s slim lap as he climbed into the pit amidst a roar of approval from the onlookers. Ugly men and ugly women alike flocked to the edge to see. No one followed at first. And then one brave soul would step up, would put money on himself, and would climb in after him. There was an unofficial treasurer who seemed to keep track of what bet was where, by who and on whom. Somehow, despite this, a sous here, a franc there, seemed to find its way to his possession. There was still yet another mechanism, he as this insidious banker. More confident with each coin.

He counted. He did not watch the fights. He only listened to the sound of flesh colliding with flesh, and watched as a decent man or the victims fellow would drag the loser out. Gueulemer did not emerge. Only once did he rear his unsightly countenance to grin brutishly at his young accountant before again he disappeared into the pit. Beating people and profiting from it was a vile means to a necessary end. It seemed that the beast could not be beaten. Montparnasse no longer payed attention to the men who entered; only to the bloodied pulps that emerged. Each less distinguishable than the last.

It wasn’t until he studied the breadth of the man who climbed in next he was given any pause. He was broad, certainly, but by no means was he sizable enough to be of a challenge to the crowd favourite. His merciless onslaught would break the man. No one was concerned by this, however. And as it had before, the sound of flesh colliding with flesh, hot nasal breaths and sharp groans filled the air. The distinctive aroma of blood and sweat permeated. Despite his initial doubt, this man seemed to be lasting longer. But he was paying dearly for it if the gasps of the gawking crowd was any indication. It was unfair, why – it was murder for Gueulemer to continue on and suicide for his opponent not to bow out.  

Still, Montparnasse took no real interest in it until he heard a sneer of something, and a familiar quip in return. They were chastising one another. And it was not Gueulemer’s words that struck him as familiar. Montparnasse rose swiftly. He pocketed the money he had been holding and let the barbarian’s shirt fall to the floor. He trampled it in his eagerness to reach the edge of the pit. He looked at the challenger now. The man was as much as mess as the last, but his tousled ebony curls, his already broken nose.

“Grantaire.” Montparnasse gasped. He was being pummelled, beaten into dark and purple against the skirting board. The boy’s reaction was knee jerk, and remarkably witless. He scrambled into the pit and with the back of his beautiful hand he struck Gueulemer. The slap seemed to echo. For a moment, all was still, all was silent. Only the faintest of ringing’s could reach.

“Get off him, off- get off.” The child growled, he sounded deadly as the recipient of his command was. The gravity of it caught Gueulemer by surprise and he stumbled backward. Grantaire looked at Montparnasse through swelling eyes, his swollen lip spreading in a crooked grin. _Grantaire_. Gueulemer had heard that name from those lips before. Perhaps it was that which forced him to draw back.

“Parnasse.” He breathed, as though the thief were an angel. Venerated or granted Sainthood for this miracle, this charity, in saving his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, if anyone's still reading this, congratulations! You are the single most patient fanfic readers. I'm so sorry it's taken so long to update - life really got the better of me. But I had so many ideas for this in mind. I have a ten day break from uni and so here I am with this new chapter. I'm so so sorry for the long break between updates, I'll do my best to finish this story more promptly. As usual, thank you so much for reading, commenting, kudos, etc, it means the world to me! Chapter 5 will go up tomorrow, and is written. I haven't had a chance to beta read 4 or 5 but I will check four through tomorrow so - be kind. (it's 1am, I need to stop posting late and commit.)


	5. Dissemble

It was rather more difficult than the boy had thought it would be. Carrying the weight of the man as he leaned against his shoulder, as he bled on the once white collar of Montparnasse’s shirt from the nose, amidst the mournful cries of the gawkers who had paid for the spectacle. Had his eyes not glinted with danger at the mere suggestion of violence on their part they may have found it still yet more challenging. He had not forgotten the way to his home, after having made it a safe haven of his far too many times there was no mistaking the path. Grantaire’s feet tripped and caught on the cobble stones and twice- three times- Montparnasse nearly fell with him. The stairs posed a significant challenge, but the only contribution that Grantaire made to their progress was a hearty, albeit nasal, laugh.

“Imagine that we fall.” He teased, breath hot on the shell of Montparnasse’s ear.

“You’ll have no need to in a moment.” The boy shot back, choleric raising its ugly head. Such an unbecoming trait on someone so pretty, not that Grantaire minded, he seemed to swoon. As if fond. He didn’t speak again, instead Montparnasse took charge of him and all but dragged. The exertion brought a scarlet flush to his cheeks that Grantaire’s muddled gaze fixed itself on. If he had the money – if the money could be got, a loan from this relative or other – he would grind the rouge to paint this exquisite look of determined irritation on the young ones face.

After another flight, a few more bouts of laughter from Grantaire, they found his door. He had not locked it, perhaps he did not fear being robbed or perhaps he had nothing of value that warranted a thief’s attention to steal. Montparnasse could attest. The dandy deposited his friend – if he could be called a friend, he so sparingly used the word – on the edge of his bed and he paused to catch his breath. He brought in a deep gasp of breath, his delicate bones practically shuddering with the effort.

“You’ve acquired a new coat.” Grantaire commented airily, quite pleased with himself for having noticed. Reaching out to brush the seam of the coat with his fingertips. Montparnasse quickly brushed it off.

“After spoiling my shirt I would rather you not spoil anything else.” He countered smoothly, taking the place that would normally have belonged to Grantaire. They were in reverse; he in the bed, Montparnasse perched on the single lonely chair. Grantaire studied his countenance for a moment, characteristic crooked smile not shifting despite his swollen lip.

“So that is why you’ve given up visiting me, you are warming another’s bed.” He said it in the same manner as he had always. With lightness, but Montparnasse detected and undertone of sombre acceptance.  It was the only explanation for the coat, for the shoes and – even a hat, Grantaire had not noticed it. Now he blinked at it in surprise as the boy removed it, not in the manner of a gentlemen accustomed to wearing one, placing it brim to the table top. He was being patronized, and why should he not be? He was a clever little viper, his was the worst venom; the kind that like Absinthe was an addiction. Slowly poisoning the bitten, and what was still yet more unpleasant was that they allowed it, and would forgo the antidote for another bite.

“Because it could not be so that I acquired these things for myself.” Clipped Montparnasse.

“No, it could not.” The cynic answered without a moment of hesitation. It seemed to provoke the boy, who squirmed with visible loathe.

They passed for a time in terse silence. Neither could find words for the other, the earlier companionable glances lost. Montparnasse rose to his feet to examine the papers plastering the wall where the previous wallpaper had peeled away. It had grown since Montparnasse had last visited, he raised his hand to trace the lines of a girl. He did not know her. She was plump and soft and she looked over her shoulder, fat braid trailing between her creased shoulder blades. She was very pretty, but as though she had only escaped being plain in her bloom.

“Floréal.” Grantaire’s husky tone was filled with warmth saying her name. Montparnasse looked at him for a moment, lips apart, before he said her name back to him. Grantaire nodded. “She is a bankers wife now.” He didn’t sound terribly pleased to say so, and Montparnasse shot him a knowing look.

“You must have taken quite a fancy to her, then. To see her without her clothes. Were you close?” This was not the sort of question they could ask one another, just as Grantaire had known he could not ask if Montparnasse was warming another’s bed or not. They were on par now.

“Were? And why with the past tense? What’s to say we aren’t close now? Have you ever been fucked by a banker, ‘Parnasse? There’s little to say about it. I think to say nothing would say the most of all.” Grantaire scoffed, and so Montparnasse assumed that, no, he was no longer seeing her, and he was not pleased about it.

He did not say that he had been fucked by a banker. He did say, instead, “I would like to see you say nothing. It would be a welcome change.” He may have only began learning to read line by line in Journal des débats a few short weeks ago, but that was no marker of his intelligence. He was clever and quick-quitted, he may have become something had circumstances permitted. That could be said for far too many of his position.

“If you go on like that you may yet see.” Came Grantaire’s reply, muffled somewhat by the cloth he had taken to staunch his nose and clean himself up. Montparnasse had no intention of doctoring him. Such a visceral task, he didn’t clean up blood, he much preferred being the one to make a man bleed.

Flitting over remaining images of Floréal Montparnasse paused to admire his own portrait. He was transfixed for a moment, not daring to so much as blink as his gaze swept down the column of his throat and across the angle of his jaw. His eyes were wide, and he found himself both enchanted and discomforted if he looked into them for too long. He sought to find another of himself when another pair of eyes struck him. They were harsher than his own, and they were wider. A woman he had thought at first glance, full lips parted in speech, crease pressed between brows. Another of Grantaire’s trysts perhaps. But then he looked closer. He could see the wispy pencil flicks that detailed the eyelashes, fine as fine, and the elegant curls that swept across the forehead and behind the ears, to rest on the shoulders. It was a bust, the arms had been added but no legs.  Their arm- _his_ arm, he realized, was thrust above his head. Who was this man? Slight, and beautiful, so much so it made his stomach tighten and a jealous rage burn him.

“Who is this?” Montparnasse spat, not remotely surprised by his own disgust. His loathing for the angelic figures beauty.

“That,” Grantaire began, softer than he had ever spoken before, “Is my fair Pythian Apollo.”

And for a moment, the words were nonsense. Irrelevant. Poetic smatter. For a moment, this man was not a real man, he was only an image Grantaire had taken down in the likeness of this Pythian Apollo.  But then it came to him, that night, so long ago. Grantaire had been a drowning man and Montparnasse had sullied his bed with his dirty feet. And he had asked, was there any fairer?

Envy clotted the petal veins to his heart. His teeth grit. He couldn’t tare his gaze away from that pretty face. It was taunting him. This was the fair one that had caught Grantaire’s entire attention? This girlish youth? Who was glaring, glaring from the page? Montparnasse turned to face the battered man with a fire in him scolding enough to heat a branding iron. He was far more, was he not? Why was it this other was so deserving of his pencil, and his attentions now and Montparnasse was not?

“I see I am gone scarcely a month, and you take to another muse.” The boy snarled, his teeth still locked at the jaw. “How fortunate that I have found another bed to warm, the sheets have not cooled and you find another to have my place.” He was being unreasonable, certainly. After all, Grantaire had expressed his affection for this man before. But he had been faceless before. He had not been prettier than Montparnasse, before. The fuse had been lit in him as never before. Jealousy, and anger, and vanity a deadly mix in the powder keg.

The shock on Grantaire’s face was visible. He had come to the same conclusion, and could not understand the reason for the outburst.

“You were not so moved by my depictions of Floréal, and you will find that his clothes are rather more tangible than hers.” Grantaire replied, astonished still. Struggling to see any reason for such violent upset. He was not so foolish as to think that the boy was in love with him. No, it was not that. It was that he had turned his artistic eye to a more subjectively arresting face. He had been passed over. And in Montparnasse’s mind that would not do. What was he if not this? If not the more comely?

“Nor were you.” Montparnasse’s voice became tremulous. His emerald eyes pricked with affected tears. And yet, they still plucked at the strings of Grantaire’s heart as if a harp. He lurched forward somewhat, as if he thought to placate the boy. But Montparnasse curled away as if he had been struck, snatching his hat from the table.

“Montparnasse be reasonable, come, sit.” Urged the artist, in part frustrated, in part apologetic. Montparnasse did that to men, made them feel sorry when they shouldn’t. Those emerald eyes swam and even Grantaire’s chest tightened.

“I won’t. I’ll be leaving. I can see I am not needed here any longer.” The fop took up his hat again and spun on his heel as if to go. The breadth of his shoulders gave him away, they trembled. The startling realization came over Grantaire then, as if he hadn’t seen the water in his eyes.

“You are crying.” He remarked

“If I am crying it's because of you!” Montparnasse snapped, wiping the dirty tears away with the back of his hand. He was furious, how dare Grantaire not take him seriously, reduce him to a weeping fool without the mind enough to keep himself becoming hysterical.  “I’ll see myself out.” There was never any question of the other accompanying him as far as the door. He could hardly stand to beckon him over, let alone escort him.

When he stood alone, finally. In the hall. He raised his sleeves, and he wiped his eyes. It was not that he had loved Grantaire. He hadn’t. In fact, Montparnasse did not believe his heart was capable of the thing, but it was knowing very well that Grantaire had loved this other, had chosen over him. In his mind, it could be only a contest of looks. Other merits meant nothing to the minds of men. It was almost sad, to come to that conclusion.

This would be the last time he came to Grantaire’s apartment of his own accord. He would tell himself he had forgotten the way, but it was not so. He never forgot. But neither did he forgive.

\---

Bruises had faded, the limp had gone. And the memory of those stormy emerald hues had been overshadowed and fallen into obscurity. Replaced by the cerulean wells that passed before him, never stopping. Never turning to look at him.

He could remember first seeing him clearly as day. Grantaire could not recall the time, the day, at the best of times, but this he remembered. It had been sweltering summer, and he had left for the Champ de Mars as most poor did to seek the open air, away from the stench of the city. The sight he had met with filled his empty stomach, fed his soul, so that a day without food hadn’t mattered; the sight of him nourished. _Oh,_ his heart had gasped, _you._ It were as if Grantaire’s very foundation had crumbled. The agony that crippled his chest to sharp breaths subsided. And he breathed, bathed in the light of this ferocious sun as it threatened to exhume all that was left of his hope. Enjolras held paper high in his hand, he was beautiful and severe, his sleeves rolled to his shoulders, his cravat but a knotted tie at his neck. He had never seen a creature more dishevelled and more distinguished all at once. His blonde hair was a main and it was tied carelessly with a scarlet ribbon. His glacial eyes had pierced Grantaire but for one moment. And he had been lost forever. Had he not spoken, perhaps Grantaire could have passed, but those words uplifted his soul from the dirt, and promised to care for it. He promised justice, and for those minutes he spoke, Grantaire had believed every word must be but the newest gospel. He could not see that world, but he had no doubt Enjolras could.

To witness Enjolras was like watching a slow flame ignite. Enjolras was filled to the brim with embers, they needed only a breeze to burn. He was the torch brought to life by the dying flicker of the candle of Arras. Tonight was no different, and Grantaire had no part in the conversation, but from his corner he could see him, he watched his lips frame every impassioned word. His heart swelled from it, his fingers tightened around the neck of his bottle for it. He was beautiful, and if he ever dared come close, Grantaire would burn alive. The room was full of opinion, ideas flowing mouth to mouth, one thing to the next. Everyone said their piece, it was a harmonious cacophony. Grantaire had no place in any of it, he didn’t put much stock in a single word that passed his ears. He was trying desperately to make sense of those snarling lips, that hand that turned to a white knuckle in debate with someone Grantaire hardly knew. He wouldn’t last long, whoever he was. Grantaire didn’t think so, at least. People who challenged Enjolras either combusted, or destroyed themselves for him. Grantaire had fervently done both.

Enjolras didn’t hate this distantly admiring cynic nearly enough, not as much as he should. They were sworn enemies, opposing idioms. Enjolras was all that was good, and beautiful, and pure. Grantaire considered himself all that was left, he was the hole in a man’s heart that couldn’t be filled by any wine, any lover’s body but one. They fought like graceful animals with their words. They shot daggers with their eyes. And their hearts ached, yearned, soured over one another unknowingly.

“I have no faith in the human race after today,” Joly said to something Grantaire didn’t catch the start of, and he laughed, that seemed the right response. Bahorel laughed with him, and Grantaire knocked back another scolding mouthful of absinthe.

“Ah, but what is humanity I ask you? You, Joly, have either had too much to drink, or not enough.” Grantaire began, getting to his feet, ready again to make a fool of himself. Knowing it wouldn’t matter what he did. That glacial gaze would never follow him. Would never seek him out to hear every word as his own hazel eyes sought blue.  “There is nothing glorious in the feats of man, how many centuries have we blundered, and we still cannot provide a reason for our own exist? What is science, what is medicine? Where is God? Why do we pursue these things, are we happier for any of it?”

“Think yourself a philosophe this evening, Grantaire?” Challenged Jehan, getting to his feet, a brow raised at him. “Will you write a social contract for us, too?”

“I, unlike Rousseau , know that fundamental truth,” He waxed, waving his free hand, a grin twisting his lips. “Call me Voltaire, if I’m going to be a philosophe at all.”  He added, taking another sip from his bottle.

“What do you know of Voltaire?” Bossuet scolded, as he might scold a child, reaching to take Grantaire’s arm to save his friend the fool of himself he’d make. But Grantaire, ever persistent, yanked his hand back.

“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.” Grantaire recited verbosely, with a hint of theatrics gripping his tone.

Bossuet’s cheeks burned, perhaps with drink, perhaps with being put away by Grantaire in his words. Bahorel thumped his shoulder sympathetically.  “You would not even know the rules of that game, Grantaire.” He jibbed. And Grantaire threw his head back to laugh.

“Do you know what the Enlightenment was, L’Aigle? Well, let it to me to tell you.” Grantaire’s finger raised, a mimicry of more sophisticated gesticulation that drew a snicker from Joly. “Just because you begin to question, does not mean everything will suddenly be inspired to change in itself, have we not enough unanswered questions?”

Jehan flicked his thick braid over his shoulder in irritation, “Come my dear, sit will you? You are making us a scene.”

“Forgive me Jehan, I’ve forgotten how you love them,” Grantaire pet the other’s hand with the utmost delicacy, he was truly fond of Jehan. As was everyone. “I cannot understand the worship of their works, what was it you mentioned? It was the Social Contract wasn’t it? A fallacy, cover to cover.”

“What problem do you have with Rousseau ?” Came one voice, scorching like the heat of wildfire caught on the wind. Grantaire froze. He couldn’t find another word, he was silent for a long moment. And then he turned, and there he stood, in all of his glowing, bright glory. Thunder ran through his veins, every breath the precipice to a deafening roar. Grantaire had to remind himself that Enjolras was a mere mortal, sometimes. It didn’t always work.

“Enjolras! So good of you to join,” Grantaire bowed gratuitously. “What problem? Have I ever read anything more idealised than his exploits? He relies so much on intrinsic goodness- the general will, which assumes the general will the good.” He began. Enjolras shifted, provoked, or perhaps, to anyone watching, intrigued. This was what drew Enjolras forward so easily. Grantaire was no fool, however he behaved. He knew what he was talking about, even if Enjolras didn’t agree. To Enjolras, Grantaire’s life had wasted cleverness, potential, lost in misery so far that Enjolras was at a loss to draw him back. He didn’t know what to do with him. He was the embodiment of what Paris did to people, he was the enigma, and Enjolras could no sooner handle him than he could his country in crisis.

“You have no ethos of your own, that’s why you cannot understand it.” Enjolras decided, and the room seemed to quiet, almost, to listen to them, some heads turned, some trying to keep turned away, to be uninvolved. Grantaire finished his bottle, and he stood up on the long table. He clapped.

“No ethos he says.” He quirked his lips, and he held out his hand. “There it is, there where you are standing, my maxim, my paradigm; Enjolras.” Grantaire’s wild grin was the moon devouring the sun, it was lopsided, it was bitter. Enjolras eyed his hand, before he took it, and he stepped up on the table with him. Grantaire, off balance perhaps from the drink, or perhaps because Enjolras fingers were tucked into his own, stood in shock, in silence.

“You are drunk.” Enjolras said, more softly, a low murmur. The room steadily became louder again, there was to be no argument tonight. The grin died on Grantaire’s lips. The vague concern in Enjolras’ eyes killed him more than his indifference ever had. Why did he have to care? Why did he always care, too much?

“When am I not drunk, fair leader?” Grantaire replied, trying to make light of it. Enjolras was still holding his hand, and his grip had doubled now. He was holding it tightly, securely.  Grantaire withdrew his own, looking at the skin as if he expected a raised scar. Nothing yielded. It was as it had been. Enjolras’ lips turned downward, formed a frown.

“Go home, Grantaire. Come back when you have sobriety to make you think clearly, or do not come back at all.” Enjolras said, perhaps more sharply than he’d meant. And Grantaire recoiled in anguish. They both eyed one another as they withdrew from their stage, as the room reshaped around them, and suddenly there was Joly, and there was Combeferre. Everything existed again, and Grantaire ached, and Enjolras ached.

Grantaire picked his jacket up. “Enjolras…” Attempted Jehan, but the golden haired already turned away, already retreated to the side of his philosopher, who’s hand raised in reverence to touch his shoulder, a troubled expression taking his face as Enjolras turned to him with the tenderness of a lover to say words by his ear that none caught. All that could be made of it was the severe set that took Combeferre’s face after having heard them.

The night was bitter and unforgiving when Grantaire stepped into it, he drew his coat tighter, but there was no saving him the chill that laid waste down to his bones. He couldn’t warm if he tried, Enjolras had carved his heart from his chest with the precision of a physician studying a cadaver. He ached, and yet, he pushed on. He had planned for the Corinthe, but his weary steps had already begun home. He wished he’d taken his bottle, the burn would stir in his empty stomach and perhaps save him the trouble of feeling. He felt painfully sober.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it too me so long to upload this- I kept coming up with more ideas for this and subsequent chapters and ended up scrapping the original drafts. I'm in the middle of uni finals, and I've handed in three of four final papers. I took the night off to finish this chapter and the next. Thank you to anyone still reading, and for being so patient with me. I really appreciate all of you, and I love this story, and am so glad I have all of you encouraging me to keep on top of it. 
> 
> I've been thinking about adding notes at the end of the chapter for any French or historical specific language I use? If anyone would like me to, let me know and I will. Additionally, I have an annotated, period accurate map if any of you would like to see the specific locations I've refereed to throughout. Let me know, and thank you for reading!


	6. Indulgence

Having turned himself away from the last place he could seek shelter, Montparnasse felt woefully retrograde. He had, in a day and some of the night before, severed ties with two of those more likely to secure him. First, Gueulemer, who he was not fool enough to think would look past Montparnasse’s interruption, and the sharp blow he’d delivered by way of his back hand. Setting aside that he had dropped the money. The money. Which he himself would have had a cut from. He had ruined this for himself. He clung his wrist tightly to his chest, felt the faint dig of a cut stone against his skin through the material of his shirt. He could cry, in frustration, in anguish. He could cry again. But he was already vexed for having wasted as many as he had on Grantaire’s foolish admiration for the Adonis. He walked, he put his hat on his head. He wiped the damp tracks under his eyes. He straightened his back. And he walked. He knew the city as if it were the back of his hand.

He let his feet carry him, he knew not where. He could not so much read the signs as recognize them but he didn’t bother even at that. The light reflected by the high windows of the Louvre which would have drawn his eye before no longer took his interest. He felt the despair of it all creep in so deeply as to take up in his bones. He no longer felt the chill of the wind or pulled his coat to keep it away. He watched the flourish of skirts and listened to the vapid chatter of women and children and the men who were their husbands or admirers. He watched this all as if he were not a part of it, as if he had not lived these streets and watched the same go on and on for what could have been eternity, but was truly the better part of eighteen years.

Montparnasse could not say how long he wandered, only that he had left it behind, was now dragging his feet along the Quai de Tuileries and reached the bridge at Pont Louis before he was stopped. At first, he almost moved to do as he had done to Grantaire, to throw the hand aside until he turned to face the man to whom it belonged and found himself meeting those deceptively kind hues again.

“Consider yourself a Flâneur?” He asked, “Not with your shirt in such a state, I would think. How have you bloodied it so quickly?” Babet. He picked at the collar, which had now turned the colour of rust around the collar, staining his ill tied cravat with it.

“It isn’t my blood.” Montparnasse answered curtly. He grew weary of these encounters. Grew very weary of the lot of it. Gueulemer would have told him by now and Babet would be here to assure him his assistance was no longer necessary. It made him sick to think. He would torture himself with the thought of what could have been. It would surely kill him. He would die of this.

“No I should think not.” Babet answered gravely, his hand returning to the grip of his cane as if he had any need to brace against it.

“I did not hurt anyone.” Montparnasse clarified, his own fingers raising now to pluck the material, feeling the stiffness. It had set over night. Another thing spoiled. He couldn’t hope to get the blood washed free, and he had burned the bridge to replacing it.

“No you did not,” Babet agreed excitedly, shifting on his feet. “Quite the extraordinary thing, you are either exceptionally brave or more a fool than I had thought.” He chimed, his gaze flickering to the hat precariously perched on Montparnasse’s head. His own was bare, precisely because the boy had stolen it. He didn’t seem displeased, rather, his eyes shone; a suspicion of his had been confirmed.

“I am not a fool.” The younger clipped, tired of being treated as such, a cold indifference stealing his usually expressive, fine face.

“No, I didn’t think so.” He said. “It is an all too common mistake to think that beauty must accompany stupidity.” Babet concluded, moving to Montparnasse’s side now, taking his arm as he began to walk them. Montparnasse considered pulling away. But he didn’t.

“You know, then. Of what I did. That I struck Gueulemer.” It was not the worst thing Montparnasse had done but it certainly was the only thing he wanted to admit. Not wanting to mention the livre he had trampled in his haste to rescue his Icarus.

Babet didn’t answer at first, he admired the gleam of the sun off the water. He sighed over children that ran stray across the path and over fences. “Do you think their parents know where they are? Do you think they care?” He asked, to no answer. Seemingly unperturbed by the silence of his companion he paused to pick a wild flower that had caught on at the foot of a wrought iron gate. He pressed it into his button hole. “Do I know, you asked, hm? Oh, yes. Certainly. But it makes very little difference. I often have to refrain from giving the fellow a good natured strike with the paper myself.”

“That isn’t the same.” The paler pouted, perhaps for effect. Perhaps it was natural, regardless, Babet gave his elbow joint a gentle pet.

“No, I suppose not.” He consented, his gaze flickering away again. “I haven’t come to talk of that incident regardless.” Babet stopped them then, Montparnasse tensed a fraction. Uncertain. “I’ve come to ask that favour of you, do you remember?”

Did he remember? How could he forget? The weight of it hung above him as if the guillotine’s blade. And there he lay, strapped to the board, while three men he hardly knew waited for a whim to pull the rope. Silence was his answer. Babet rightly assumed that the momentary flicker of terror that broke his composure meant yes.

“Claquesous has need of you.” Babet said the man’s name without a change of tone, but it changed everything in Montparnasse. Claquesous, the man who had called him pretty, who had fastened the bracelet around his wrist in the first. He was both terrified and thrilled to hear it was he who required him. “You are a thief too, are you not?” He was asked this with both knowing well it was true. Montparnasse only nodded, plump lips pressed tightly together.

“Good. He will be pleased. You had better come with me, so that the finer points may be discussed somewhere more… private.”

\---

Somewhere private became the newest den that the three had chosen to occupy. Whether the last had been discovered or they had simply sought a change in scenery it was unclear. They were tucked away on the second level of a weather warn apartment building on rue Copeau This centre of operation was still yet more sparsely decorated than the last. There was no chaise lounge tattered and pushed against one wall. There was only a table in the centre of the room, and four chairs which had not been so before. Montparnasse had counted only three before. He chose not to see the addition of another as ominous. There were still only three doors leading away down the corridor. No other adjustments had been made, aside from the chair.

The group, which consisted of Montparnasse, stony face Gueulemer, and smiling Babet, all took sides of the table expectantly. Montparnasse waited. He knew with certainty they were missing a man, that if there were four chairs, and three of them there, he must surely be coming. This did not prove true, and after a moments silence Babet began to rabbit seemingly without prompt.

“If it is agreeable to the both of you, I should like to begin.” He laced both hands and lurched forward until he took up much of the space over the table, dispossessing even Gueulemer of a few inches where he had been leaning. “There is to be a ball in two days’ time, it has piqued the interests of a valuable ally that we seek to placate. We intend to go, and take from the poor Madame a certain jewel that is desirous to them. The plan is simple enough.” Babet’s beady grey eyes flickered between his two companions then. “Montparnasse shall go with me as my son, and when the time is right, he will take to her bed chambers, and make good on the theft.”

Motparnasse gaped, “Simple enough? How will I know when it is time for me to do this? If you mean to suggest I bed her you will be in need of a new thief.” His slim fingers curled into tight ivory fists at each side, trembling with the affront. “And for another thing, I’ve nothing to wear but the clothes on my back. I haven’t danced, I have never been to a ball. I would not risk the ridicule myself for a handful of measly jewels.”

Babet sighed, as a father does when his son has disappointed him with a poor result. “Montparnasse, it seems to me you’ve forgotten the circumstances surrounding our present arrangement.” He shook his head, glancing at Gueulemer as if expecting him to mimic the gesture. The brute remained unmoving. “You see, you are obliged… our exchange – well, call it a contract, my boy. And once it is fulfilled… you are free to go as you please.” That was, perhaps, not strictly true. But at present, Babet didn’t feel he himself was obliged to address the intricacies of their engagement. “Besides, all of the intricacies required of your liaison will be taught to you. Why, by the end of this week you’ll be indistinguishable from any of the other beaux mondes.”

Montparnasse was seemingly unsatisfied by that answer, sour faced, petal soft lips already twisting into a characteristic leer of displeasure. He was unconvinced. When he had been only a boy, at the very peak of salon vogue on the Champs-Élysées, he had watched women and men drift across the floor, bodies entwined, skirts and petticoats swirling in hypnotic, endless circuits. He had peered through the windows and his grimy fingers had pressed to the pane. His stomach rumbling, possessed with a hunger completely removed from his poverty driven famine. “On one condition.” He said, after a moment of considerate silence that had returned his expression to a melancholic pout.

Babet laughed. “A condition? My, you are a shrewd businessmen, Monsieur, but since I am feeling rather in the mood to indulge you, go on. What condition? What must I do to convince you?”

“I will be bringing my own dance partner, you need not paint one of your common strumpets for the occasion. I know just the one.” Montparnasse spoke coldly, but his gaze was his tell. His eyes beheld a tense set; he was waiting. Babet either not noticing, or feeling truly indulgent as he had said, yielded.

“Then you’ll do it?” He asked, smiling so widely that his teeth peered out from between his thin lips.

Montparnasse gave a curt nod.

\----

The night had fallen, and again Montparnasse found himself without a place to go. This was no rare occurrence, he had been born into the streets, and so they were more a home to him than any apartment had any capacity to be. The street lamps glittered, shining reflections glaring from the pavement where the light caught and echoed. He breathed, and the cool air stung in his throat. He had taken his leave from the stifling room on rue Copeau though he was under no illusion, they knew he had nowhere to go. His pride would keep him shivering in the cold for the rest of his short life if he did not tread carefully. He had thus far burned any hope of stealing Grantaire’s bed, and so, he employed a particular knowledge that only boys who were once gamin had. That was, an intimate acquaintance with the driest allies in Paris. To stoop so low again after finding his feet stung more than each deep breath of frigid night. Still, he pressed on, what other choice had he?

Montparnasse came to his favourite crevice between the Corinthe and a drapers shop. He slipped into the alley like a snake on its belly but he found it not entirely unoccupied. There, tucked into one grubby corner, was a circle of equally filthy children. Barefoot on the stone, they each took turns flicking a silvery button into an empty tin can. When one would miss, they would shuffle, so that the moonlight might better guide the aim of the next as the button was retrieved; and the game began again.

“What are you doing?” Montparnasse asked, young, but a boy himself, but just old enough to be considered almost an adult to the children squatting about their can. One looked up at him, blue eyes bright with mirth at the simple enjoyment gotten from their play.

“What are _you_ doing?” He echoed back, and both registered the lacking of sophistication in the other’s pronunciation and realised that they were kin. Both born of, and by the streets. Montparnasse was one of their own, grown past boyhood as so few did to his first burnish of youthful manhood.

“Things.” Montparnasse replied, swaying slightly on his feet. He approached the ring and his shadow towered over them, blocking out the light. Obscuring the trajectory as the button as it circled the rim and clattered away across the stone. In chorus, the boys erupted, and slowly Montparnasse knelt, moving to the side so that the moon and the lamp could illuminate the way, and they could begin again.

“Would you like to play?” The blue eyed boy asked, retrieving the button with his overlong nails, holding the shining button in his open palm. Montparnasse raised his own hand with a flourish of the wrist, and taking the button between bird-boned fingers, he flicked it, and the button landed squarely in the cup.

“I do not play games.” Montparnasse spoke stiffly. The children, not believing, or uncaring, produced it again, and continued.

“No,” again, the blue eyed, “You win them.”

“Gavroche,” said a slighter child, turning toward him, common brown eyes wide and glassy as he passed on the token. “It’s your turn.”

\---

When the moon and the night were swept away by dawn and the sun rose, warming Montparnasse where he sat curled toward himself against the alley wall; Paris was already awake. The sound of feet and the indistinguishable chatter carried like bird song to the boy who woke gently, his dark lashes fluttering as he fought wakefulness. Soon his eyes peered out, tired, unseeing, and his sweet face took on the same character as the day before. Sorrow made him look older. When he turned his head in search of his companions, they were gone. And with them his hat, and the knife he kept tucked in his boot. His breath caught: he had been robbed.

“Vile creatures.” He growled, ignorant of his own hypocrisy as he searched his person for anything else they had taken. Montparnasse felt his heart thunder as he checked the weight at his wrist, and found the bracelet he had been given still fastened tightly beneath the cuff. He could forgo his hat and his weapon, he had no purpose for either of those yet. And they could be got, but he knew only one unfortunate method, and he despised the idea of being in any further debt to _them_. He could see Babet’s toothy grin already.

He rose slowly, languorously, as if it pained him, every movement a labour. He ran his fingers back through his raven hair and tried to conjure some dignity about him. He had a mere day left in which to make good on his condition, and if he had any hope of accomplishing the task he had better begin quickly. Bringing his coat as close around him as he could he made his exit and emerged onto the street. Only a handful stopped to look at him, young girls with want in their gazes as they were dragged on by weary mothers. Older gentlemen who paused in shop windows to look past the mannequins at his pitiful figure as he flounced by.

Montparnasse had no certain way to find her, only a single instinct that he trusted to lead him. He had walked precisely this way a hundred times or more before, but today something felt distinctly heavier about each foot fall. He had never before felt anything above him. Trapped by circumstance as he may be, he had ever been in control of his own person when all else was out of his hands. Now he was a puppet on a scarlet ribbon. With that thought, Montparnasse rested his mind by feasting his eyes on the elegant display of lace and silk sewn into bodice and skirt, arranged gracefully on a graceless body of wood. The shop front was cleaner than it had been, and still wet for it. Montparnasse was just as enchanted by the illusion of grandeur such clothes provided as he had been but a few days ago. He had an ulterior motive, this time. He watched the passing reflections in the glass more diligently than he did the women who passed by – back and forth on the other side of the glass in their frocks.

She came, after an hour, perhaps more. She melted out of the crowd and came to his side. Taupe eyes fixed on her fellow’s emerald green ones in reflection.

“See something you like?” She asked, rather more pointedly than she had spoken in their first interaction. She was carried past this way almost every morning when her father sent her with letters to deliver to unfortunate charitable fellows. And each morning since the first she had seen his slender figure there, she had paused, and she had looked, and then walked on. Here he was again, to her surprise.

“Perhaps.” Montparnasse replied, turning toward Éponine to look at her. Around her wrist, precisely where he had tied it, the ribbon remained. It was dirty now, but in places the fine powder blue still shone through. “I have something for you, little bird.” He said, voice soft and supple, saccharine. And though Éponine was wise enough to know the sound of sickly sweetness when she heard it, it was so rarely employed on her that she stopped to listen.  “I’ve been tasked with something, something important, and I need your help.”

A favour, then. How valuable a favour could be. “And what’s that, then? I haven’t got all day, you know, I have places to be.” She caught her filthy skirts in her hand and swayed just so, perhaps to entice him. He watched, but his expression remained unflinching.

“I would like you to partner me at a ball.” His request was blunt, but the effect immediate and profound. She dropped her skirts, and her lips parted, and her eyes became wide. She either did not, or could not believe.

“A ball?” She breathed, in the same manner a young girl without means breathed words like ‘marriage’ and ‘dowry.’ Almost reverently. She, like he, had watched from the outside as women, shining like the smooth cut face of a diamond, lit the very room with their glow, glistening in tulle and silk, dripping in jewels. “I have nothing to wear.”

“Never you mind what you’ll wear.” Montparnasse cut in, before she could consider the idea much farther. “Leave that with me. Tell me yes.” He didn’t phrase it as a question, so confident in her answer. Perhaps that was part of his charm, or so it seemed to her. She smiled, it was a plain smile, and there was nothing extraordinary about it. Except that Montparnasse had never seen a more sincere twist of the lips in his life, and so he admired it.

“Yes, then.” She relented, as if it were some great hardship, as if she wasn’t giddy at the thought. He inclined his head, and he gestured grandly toward the door of the shop. She gathered her skirts again, more so that she could move with dignity, but when she reached the door she was afraid to enter. On the other side there were other girls, other women. They were all neat, and well dressed, with their feet squeezed into pretty little leather boots. She was none of those things. And her torn chemise, bare feet, and tattered skirts made her shrink. Montparnasse wouldn’t allow it.

He opened the door, and the bell above it chimed pleasantly to announce it. He guided her in by the elbow, ignoring the picture they painted, standing there together. Two filthy children. He walked to the counter, paying no mind to the shop keeps upturned nose as he shook the bracelet down, and unclasped it. The heavy sound it made as it clattered onto the wood drew the man’s attention at last.

“How may I help you, Monsieur?” He asked, prolonging the title so that Montparnasse might know how he begrudged him it.

“We require a gown, one that would match this.” He reached back for Éponine, and seizing her wrist gently he raised the ribbon he had stolen from this very establishment, turning it so the colour would be clear.

“That could be arranged.” The shopkeeper admitted, calling for his seamstress. She was an aging woman, with grey hairs peppered through her long dark mane of auburn locks, her eyes were beady, and her hands small. She chose the garment that the ribbon had been designed to match, and she made Éponine stand on a box so that she might pin and make adequate alterations. She complained under her breath that the girl was skin and bone, but this didn’t dampen Éponine’s spirits, she looked at Montparnasse as though he were an angel.

He looked back at her as though she were the same.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the amount of jump-cuts in this chapter! It’s very long, and there’s a lot going on, so I couldn’t avoid it.
> 
> The hardest part about this chapter was actually trying to figure out if Montparnasse’s gold bracelet would sell for enough in the 1830s for him to buy Eponine’s dress. I had to find out how much gold was selling for per gram in the 1830s , convert it from US dollars to Francs, and then from Francs to the 19th century Franc. Then I had to estimate based on the available figures how much her gown would have cost. I might be wrong, all of this is based off of a bunch of different sources I complied, but I like to try and be as historically accurate as possible, so that entire section is a guestimation! 
> 
> My friend Zanny said she would be interested in end notes, so, here they are! Shout out to her, and anyone else who still reads this, despite how sporadically I update. I’ve changed my major so that I’m doing a double major in history and classics, and it’s pretty intense, so thank you for your patience, and for still following this fic! 
> 
> To clarify, there’s no Mont/Ep action here, and it won’t ever come to volition in this fic, Montparnasse just admires how genuine she is, and how alike they are.
> 
> Get ready for the next chapter, explicit content ahead; therein this fic will finally earn its rating!
> 
> End notes:  
> \- Flâneur: a man who saunters around observing society, term gained popularity in French literature in the 1820s.  
> \- rue Copeau: where modern day Rue Lacépède is located, it was renamed in 1853 after Bernard-Germain de Lacépède  
> \- beaux mondes: plural form of beau monde, essentially a term used for the French ‘High society.’  
> \- Strumpet: prostitute.  
> 


	7. Desguisier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content ahead. {M/M}

Both had agreed that it would be better to meet on rue Copeau and be ready there. Neither Éponine, nor Montparnasse having the facilities required to don finery without it being ruined in transit.

‘Will you be able to find it?’ He had asked her.

‘I know my way.’ She had replied.

That night, the air seemed colder, fouler, to the boy. And he entered to find Babet ready prepared, and Éponine in the fourth chair, her dark hair being brushed through with powder in order to make it cleaner, and workable. A woman with a lazy eye and lip colour smeared was doing what she could with it. She was a prostitute, he could tell by her stance, and by the careful rips in her skirt that only came from men’s rough, wandering hands. He had felt them, too.

At first, he hadn’t been sure that it was Éponine at all. He had never seen her without a film of filth and dirt clinging to her. She lacked the fairness of skin afforded to higher class women who rarely strayed in the sun long without a parasol, and so to counter act this she had been doused in fine powder and coloured in pink rouge at the cheeks. She did look rather pretty, and when she saw Montparnasse she smiled.

“So this was your condition,” Babet said at Montparnasse’s shoulder, looking at him all too knowingly, as if to say, ‘there is warmth in your heart, yet.’

The pair were removed so that they could dress separately, Montparnasse in a suit of finer make than ever he had laid both hands on without being in the process of picking pockets. He had quaked when first he reached for it, his fingers brushing over the fine edge of the collar, and finding no fray. He cleaned himself from the basin Babet had left him on the floor. The room he had been left in was empty, save for a mattress on the floor which served the bed. It wasn’t made, and when Montparnasse reached toward it the bed covers still held lukewarmth, as if it had been recently vacated before he entered. The shiver that went down his spine went ignored, as he focused on the task of dressing himself with anticipatory trembles. He waited some time there, getting a feel of the lining and tapered waist until there was a knock on the door. He straightened, and he opened it to find Éponine ready on the other side.

She was stunning. Her hair had been artfully piled up on her head, strands curled at the side to rest against her cheeks. The blue and cream of her gown was a fine contrast against her skin. And for a moment venomous envy settled in Montparnasse as he looked at her. She, standing beside him, may yet eclipse him, and that could not be had. The jealousy was visible in the cold glance he gave over her, but she was didn’t buckle beneath it. Instead, it seemed to fuel her, and she spun on her heel to walk back down the corridor, uncertain in her tight laced boots. He, on the other hand, was graceful, having watched others move more keenly than she. It was this that doused the momentary flare of anger. He became the role, she was a girl in dress up.

Babet stood waiting at the table, a sight becoming all too familiar to Montparnasse. “A fine young couple, are they not?” He said, clapping his hands together, delighted as he looked toward the hired woman, who returned only an icy glance. He took from the table two of three fine masks, and offered them. Montparnasse faltered, taking one of them into his hands.

“What are they for?” He asked, watching as Éponine donned hers without question.

“It’s a masquerade, cher, the mask is an essential.” Babet made it seem entirely inconsequential. But already Montparnasse understood. They had chosen this ball specifically, the masks would allow them to disguise themselves, they would be more difficult to identify from behind them. They became faceless. Poor at schooling his gaze, Montparnasse's expression gave the game away. He knew, and Babet beamed in reply. The boy took the mask without further question, and the ribbon was tied for him.

“Shall we?” Babet asked. Montparnasse didn’t offer his arm to Éponine, she simply took it without waiting, and the three departed.

\---

Their chosen ballroom was in the Hôtel de Ville in Le Marais, and already as Babet lead his two young companions in the room was consumed by a celebratory fervour. They had embraced the waltz in Paris after much ado and now the vulgarity of close quarters dancing was the common form. They danced with abandon, quickly, breaths heavy, and smiles bright, bodies close enough to incite scandal. The lesson Montparnasse had been given only the day before seemed inadequate in the face of this churning sea of dancers, poised, flying across the marble floors. The chandeliers cast a glow upon them that made them seem almost inhuman. Women glittered, and men admired from behind their disguises. Each mask more elaborate than the last. 

They were not only liberal in their dance, and in their clothes, but in their very moral and manner. Montparnasse could see groups of men alone, and women too, so close as to think they were involved. This went unchecked, or ignored, by the larger body of Parisian bourgeoisie. That’s what they were, Montparnasse realised, new money mimicking the old.

He watched the hive, disinterred, until his gaze locked on a woman standing against a pillar. Her white blond hair was arranged tastefully in curls around her head, tied with pink ribbons. Men surrounded her like gad fly’s, and she fanned herself disinterestedly, her every move seamless. Her body was slender, and small at the waist, and they looked at her, and worshiped her, and lavished her. She raised a hand, and gently brushed a stray curl away, let her fingers trail down her jaw, and then her neck, until it rested respectably over her glittering sapphires. Montparnasse mimicked the movement thoughtlessly, how did she possess these men so completely with just a look? A gesture?

“You want her.” Babet observed, certain of his conviction as Montparnasse turned his head to look at him.

“I want to be her.” He corrected, a breathlessness to his tone that could not go overlooked. Babet’s surprise was palpable, but Montparnasse was not paying attention. The woman had disappeared, and the illusory hold she had over him shattered.

“She’s the one. Mademoiselle Dupont, soon to be Viscountess. She, and her exquisite jewels, are currently taking up residence in this very hotel.” Babet whispered those words so close to Montparnasse’s ear that he winced, and moved slightly aside.

Babet gestured toward the group, “Go, enjoy yourselves, when the time comes, I’ll return for you.” And like that, the bandy legged man seemed to melt into the onlookers. The only indication of his leaving the click of his cane. Montparnasse swallowed the inexplicable lump in his throat, and he did as he had been told. He led Éponine onto the dance floor. He bowed, and she curtsied, and they began. It was more difficult than Montparnasse had first imagined, but Éponine kept her footing, kept in time.

“Where did you learn to dance?” He asked her, spinning her somewhat clumsily, face flushing for his lack of coordination. Éponine didn’t seem to notice. She was grinning, and watching the way her gown swept across the floor with each turn as she returned to each position.

“My father taught me, a very long time ago. Before money made him hate us.” She said these words without bitterness, and without sounding sorry for herself. Montparnasse gave no reply. He concentrated again on their steps. Then the next time Éponine spun it was into the awaiting arms of another man.

She laughed, and went gladly. Montparnasse felt his heart sink. He would show his hand unwittingly to another partner, she would feel his uncertain steps and know he didn’t belong. But instead of finding in his awaiting arms another woman, unknown to him, a firm hand grasped his waist, and his eyes raised to fix on a masked man. He hadn’t the time to question, to refuse, before the dance went on again.

“How is it you learned to count?” The voice was familiar, but not as though he had heard it often. More so, as if it had drifted to him in his dreams once before. It was rich, and deep, and resonant beside his ear. Montparnasse heard the words and felt each breath that bore them against the shell of his ear as the man ducked his head close to him. He caught sight of a red ribbon tying the simple mask in place. A shiver ran down his spine. This was the phantom of that night, those many nights ago. When he had been laid up, and feverish. Claquesous. He had emerged from the shadows as if he were one himself, and before any other could take Éponine’s place, he had taken the dandy for himself.

The question caught Montparnasse by surprise. He struggled to think of why he had been asked. And then it came to him. That day in the pit with Gueulemer, he had counted his bets for him. He had also struck the giant of a man fiercely.

“I once fucked a banker.” Montparnasse replied frankly, and the bluntness of it earned what came very close to a chuckle.

“And he taught you?” Claquesous asked, voice quiet, but carrying with it some note of amusement.

“Yes, he seemed to enjoy my ignorance. How dear I was to him, stupid sweet creature, without the knowledge to even count.” Montparnasse snarled, “He taught me, and then he married. And he put me out on the street again.”

Claquesous gave a considerate hum and spun him without warning, not concerned by the fact the boy was unprepared and only stayed his footing by luck.

 “Gueulemer told you, then.” Montparnasse’s voice was low now, too, his fingers curling in the material of the man’s coat. “He told you what I did.”

“Yes,” Claquesous replied, “You’ll soon learn, Montparnasse, that you cannot hide things from me. Even if he hadn’t told me, I would soon have found out.”

Something in those words made Montparnasse’s skin crawl, and his heart sing with delight. He knew words like those, men were very fond of words like those. They were animals, and things that they coveted they wished to possess, and to have jurisdiction over. Being desired fuelled him, strengthened the weakness of his heart brought on by bitterness and an ugly desire for things that could not be his.

“You are either very brave, or stupid.” Claquesous grinned against the flesh of his ear, and Montparnasse felt it, head turned just so to accommodate him. His eyes closing for a moment as he simply took the measure of his breath as it ghosted hot against his skin. It stopped, and there was an absence in his arms, and when he opened his eyes. The figure had disappeared. He was gone. And Montparnasse was left standing in the centre of the swirling throng. Utterly alone. He breathed deeply, raising a hand to brush over his ear as if to find some trace of his having been there. Nothing remained, only a flicker of sensation. Of heat. He turned, but he could see no gap, he was trapped in the middle of the dance, made dizzy by every turn and every swell.

This did not go unseen. Across the room a man of the garrison stood, still in the smart uniform. He was wearing a simple mask, and he watched as Montparnasse turned uncertainly, seeking his exit after the abandonment of his partner. He was a favoured nephew of of Monsieur Gillenormand, and he saw it is personal duty to rescue this poor young man. He slipped clumsily between dancers and took hold of the boy presumptuously, drawing him into the dance again with a pleasant smile.

His moustache was a hideous affront to Montparnasse’s eyes. And his rough broad palms manhandled him into starting position. The boy’s lips pressed tightly together, but he followed the steps as he was directed.

“How terrible, for him to leave you without as much as a bow. Never mind him. Some people’s manners are simply atrocious, and not worth your regarding.” Theodule tutted, guiding Montparnasse in a graceless stumble.

“Is that so?” Montparnasse answered, words hissed from between clenched teeth. It seemed a stretch to him that he could comment on another’s manners when he had all but forced him into a dance that scarcely resembled the steps those around them employed.

“It is indeed, but, never fear. Fortunately, I came along in time to see you.” Theodule said, a wide smile twisting his lips. One that Montparnasse didn’t return. “It’s an interesting accent you have, where are you from? Not Paris, I dare say. Further North? Or else…” The man trailed off, looking at Montparnasse again thoughtfully. He scrutinized him. It was an undressing gaze, but one that made Montparnasse tense rather than filled with the warmth that usually came from admiring looks. “How much?” Theodule asked, conclusion reached.

Rage filled Montparnasse quickly. “Excuse me? I don’t believe I heard you.” He asked, lips twisting into a dangerous, wild grin as he attempted to quell the instinct to relinquish the niceties and revert to more common behaviour.

“Oh, there’s no need to be demure, name your price, and I’m sure we can come to some agreement. I recognize that lilt.” Theodule seemed to think that he was being charming. He wasn’t. Montparnasse had heard words like those before. He knew that among the poor a lingua franca developed that sounded wrong to the classically instructed ear, but he had worked to stamp out that sound in himself; the lisp of the Parisian poor. And what was more, he didn’t like what was being implied. He had of course gone to bed for money, shelter, food. But that was no business of his.

“How dare you presume- even to suggest-” Montparnasse seethed, and he wrenched himself away. Before he could think better of it, he raised a hand. His vision pulsed and his instinct demanded recompense for the insult. Or at least, justice. Punishment.  But before it could make contact, a silk glove closed around his wrist. The hand in it stayed Montparnasse’s own.

“Stupid, then.” A voice spoke, rumbling and low, close to his ear again. Montparnasse’s heart rattled in his chest as if a newly caged bird, desperate to escape; to take flight. He didn’t have time to turn, only looked at Theodule, who was starring at Montparnasse, gaze intent, filled with ill disguised idignance. “Time to go, I think.” Claquesous, moved his grip to Montparnasse’s hand, and he dragged him away.

Already dancers had paused in their steps to look, Éponine among them, her face haughty like the rest. Montparnasse didn’t like to be looked at this way. Their eyes on him, wide with shock, with distaste. As if he were feral, uncivilised. Their disapproving stares stayed with him as he was lead from the ballroom altogether. Here his pride came back to him, and he snatched his wrist free of Claquesous’s grip.

“Where have you been?” He demanded, his voice trembling, caught in his throat. Claquesous gave no indication of being perturbed, even beneath the mask his face was unmoving, set as marble.

“I’ve been busy.” He replied, producing from his pocket a key, he began up a winding grand stair case, pausing to look at the dandy who hadn’t moved an inch since he had been addressed. “Come.” He urged, his tone commanding as it hadn’t been in the ballroom. And Montparnasse answered, coming to fall into step behind him. This was the most he had ever made out of the man. He was broader, and at the back of his head nestled amongst dark locks of hair arranged and tied neatly at the nape of his neck, the ribbon was tied twice and knotted. He fought the instinct to reach out for it, to catch the red material, and pull. Instead he followed Claquesous, up, up. Two flights of stairs and then down a corridor of gilded doors. They stopped at one, and Claquesous slipped the key into the lock. It gave a soft click, and the gilt handle yielded to his gloved hand.

“After you.” Claquesous waited, and Montparnasse hesitated for only a moment before he entered. The room was dimly lit, but it was beautiful. Every surface was finely polished and well kept.  It was the finest room he had ever set foot in, and his whole body lurched, eager to explore, to touch. He took an audible, shaky breath as he entered proper. The vanity mirror was enormous, and on the table an arrangement of brushes, and hand mirrors. He approached it first, looking at the jewellery and silver plated snuff boxes arranged tastefully in one corner, strings of pears and rings scattered across the surface among open powder and rouge containers. He let his finger touch the rouge and inspected the pigment on the tip of his finger. He had always pinched his cheeks before enticing a man to take to him, and it achieved much the same effect. Montparnasse reached for one of the hand held mirrors next, raising it to examine himself. He didn’t hear Claquesous approach, rather, he felt the string at the back of his head loosen, and the mask Babet had tied on him was removed. Montparnasse looked at his reflection. He could see the figure over his shoulder. Their eyes locked there, in the hand held mirror, and Montparnasse imagined that Claquesous was smiling.

He turned his head to one side, reluctant to lose his gaze he kept his eyes trained there until the final moment. But when he finally looked over his shoulder, Claquesous had drawn away from him. He was inspecting the bed. Hand running over the bed covers, until they caught the curtain ties, and drew them. Montparnasse approached the bed himself. It was larger, grander than any he had ever seen. Four posts housing fine white, almost sheer curtains at each side. He touched them, following the material around to the side Claquesous had stood not moments ago. He was no longer there, but when the boy turned, he came face to face with him. He made a soft sound, startled, and dropped the mirror on its face. The surface shattered, and Montparnasse searched what little of Claquesous’s face he could find for some trace of explanation.

“Who is Grantaire?” He asked, and Montparnasse’s shock registered immediately, his fine lips parting though no reply was forthcoming. “Is he your lover?” Claquesous pressed on, moving closer, backing Montparnasse closer to the bed. Montparnasse shook his head.

“No- no one. He is no one to me.” The younger reached back with both hands to find something to steady himself. He only felt the curtains. That wasn’t enough of an answer for Claquesous, who had heard the name over, and over, ever since that night, ever since those frightened eyes had searched among their ranks, and had called that name. He guided Montparnasse down, between the slit in the billowing white fabric. He laid him down.

“Are you certain?” He asked, lingering now, unbearably close. And yet, not nearly close enough.

Montparnasse’s lids were already heavy, and he let his head fall back. Demure, Theodule had called him. He was nothing of the sort, but now, as he knew men liked, he looked away. As if the weight of Claquesous’s gaze looming over him were too much. “Yes.” He confirmed. As he had anticipated, Claquesous reached out and caught his chin between thumb and forefinger, turning his head back to face him.

“Look at me.” He murmured, and Montparnasse obeyed, his green eyes taking their mark. “Good.” Claquesous leaned down then, and he caught the dandy’s scarlet lips in a kiss. It was not the first kiss, no. Montparnasse had been kissed many times. It was, however, something other. Claquesous didn’t ravage his mouth and leave it bruised and bleeding, not yet. He didn’t kiss him selfishly. Not at first, it was slow, and his tongue lapped at Montparnasse’s bottom lip. It was too slow, and he whined, and he waited for Claquesous to have his way. Men were animals, he reminded himself, and they took. And they took. And took.

It never came. Claquesous instead pressed his lips precisely and kissed him open mouthed. Long, and wet, until Montparnasse was writhing beneath him, desperate for the very thing he thought he despised. He knew not what to do with tenderness, and it was a unique kind of torture. He grasped handfuls of the man’s jacket as he had when they danced. He made all manner of sounds to plead, but Claquesous wasn’t satisfied he’d had his fill yet, and when he was tired of his lips he trailed away, following the curve of Montparnasse’s jaw to the juncture between it and his neck, just below his ear. He kissed here wetly. His teeth barely grazing the skin as he followed the line downward, interrupted by the collar of Montparnasse’s shirt, and his cravat. His hands weren’t clumsy disposing of them, he untied the cravat and tossed it away, and then he slipped the jacket back, followed closely by Montparnasse’s shirt. He didn’t have time to shrug free of them, they still hung off his arms when Claquesous found the soft cradle of his throat properly, and suckled on the pale flesh until it flushed, and bruised to the shape of his mouth. Montparnasse was forced to find new handholds, and curled instead in the bed covers. They were soft, and velveteen, and he made another sound just for that.

“Someone might hear you.” Claquesous said, he sounded amused by the notion, and Montparnasse closed his eyes, laid back, and bared his throat.

‘Come.’ It said, without words, but with the very same commanding presence the other’s earlier tone had wielded. Lascivious, Claquesous didn’t resist. He found another sweet, soft place to lay his bite, and he let his hands rest on Montparnasse’s narrow waste to feel him writhe under each touch. He kissed as far as his collarbone before he felt clever fingers brush through his hair. Before Montparnasse’s fingers could get a proper grasp on the tie his wrist was seized, and pressed to the bed, firmly.

Claquesous clicked his tongue, “No, not this time.” He said firmly, his gaze tracking to Montparnasse’s wrist. It was bare, the no glint of gold, or shine of the cut emerald stone. His eyes met Montparnasse’s for a moment. “You’re not wearing it.” He commented, quietly, as if it were of no circumstance. It was. And Montparnasse wasn’t stupid for all Claquesous had teased at it. The boy shook his head.

“No, it’s safe.” A lie, one would Montparnasse would have to make true. If the bracelet hadn’t been sold already. Claquesous knew, but his expression remained as still as ever. He descended again, slower this time. A punishment.

Montparnasse keened and his hips rose in an attempt to relieve the ache of his cock, roused, interested now that Claquesous was low, lips and hands making short work of him. He left his gloves on, and the divine touch of silk against his bare skin made him shudder, flesh breaking out in goose bumps. His pink nipples weren’t spared the diligent attention of his tongue, and the neglected bud was brushed experimentally by a thumb until Claquesous grew tired of those pleading sounds and relented to Montparnasse’s pleading.

“Lie back, close your eyes.” He instructed, and Montparnasse complied, his eyes closing, chest heaving. He was beautiful, especially this way, open like a flower in bloom for Claquesous. He had barely plied him, not offered him anything, and he had gone easy. Claquesous pressed between his legs and heard the gasp that resulted. Montparnasse raised his hips so that he could be divested of his pants and undergarments. He was naked, and Claquesous examined him more closely. His skin was creamy, and he inspected the consistently with the tips of his fingers, brushing the sensitive skin of the younger’s inner thigh. The resulting arch of Montparnasse’s back was no show of pleasure, it was a kneejerk response, the only one left to him since he couldn’t close his thighs with Claquesous between them. He raised his hand, and with his teeth he pried the glove away. “Here, gently now.” Claquesous’s fingers pressed to Montparnasse’s kiss swollen lips, and he took them gratefully. His tongue swirled and sucked and hoped to instil in him some understanding of how well he could do it, of how much more he could take.

Claquesous took his fingers away, and there was a crack in his composure, he breathed deeply. He let his fingers wander at first, brush the cleft experimentally before he pushed one finger inside Montparnasse. Even though he had sucked them, soaked them in saliva, it took a moment for Claquesous to sink into him completely, and when he did Montparnasse whimpered. He hushed him gently, leaning forward to kiss the corner of his mouth, murmuring, “Soon, you’ll fall apart in my hands, and forget this pain.” He said it to him as if this were the first time. Perhaps because that sweet sound had made him forget himself. Or perhaps Montparnasse was that good. When he peered up through his lashes, Claquesous was hypnotized.

He was dangerous, this boy.

Claquesous began to move his finger, slowly, in and out, circling his hole, stretching it until he thought he could take another. He was more careful then, more strategic. He sought something inside him and he searched for it diligently, gauging every twinge, and every moan. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he couldn’t act pretty anymore, until he could dissolve the exterior, and see Montparnasse lose himself to it. He whispered in his ear, told him what he wanted to do. He told him that he wanted to tear him apart with his teeth.

Montparnasse cried out as Claquesous hooked his fingers. Oh. _There_. That was all he needed, he began to thrust his fingers in in earnest, aiming for just that stop with each movement. He knew what Montparnasse wanted, because he clenched and rolled his hips. He wanted the man’s cock buried in him, he wanted something bigger, something that would fill him. But Claquesous wouldn’t yield, no matter how hard he was. No matter how his own pleasure beckoned. No matter how exquisite his accomplice; laid bare, spread out for him, bruises pretty purple on his skin.

He fucked him with his fingers alone, with no promise of more. Only this. Montparnasse writhed, eyes glistening with tears of frustration. It was only just enough. And no one had ever refused him what he wanted. Claquesous must want him, he was hot, and tight, and his moans were like siren song. But the man made no movement. He was merciless, pounded that place without halt until Montparnasse was begging for more.

“Please, more. I’m yours if only you would- take me.” Montparnasse’s words were winged, lovely, and tempting. It would be easy, he could sink into him, he could break him that way, Montparnasse was such a delicate thing. He would fracture. Claquesous wasn’t weak, unlike the men who had bedded the dandy before. The corner of his lips quirked, and he moved his fingers more quickly. Montparnasse didn’t last, over sensitive and frustrated, desperate for release he came, spilling over himself and staining the coverlet. Claquesous’s movements become aborted and slow, letting him ride it out, until they came to a halt. He withdrew them carefully. He made no movement to undress, in fact he simply looked at Montparnasse, slumped, covered in a light sheen of sweat, chest heaving with every breath. He turned away. On the night stand was a water pitcher and basin to wash hands before meals. He made use of it, and once he had dried his hand, he pulled his glove back on.

“Get dressed, we’re leaving.” Claquesous had his back to Montparnasse as he took a small box from the nightstand, pocketing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in a row- I actually couldn't wait to write this one, and when the last chapter started getting long, I realised I'd have to break it up into two. I didn't want to leave you all waiting another month (or more) so, here it is. I hope you enjoy it! I'm not completely happy with it, but I did my best. I'm posting at 1:32 am again (I'm Australian) so forgive me any errors. I'll comb through again in the morning. 
> 
> End notes:  
> \- Desguisier: 14th century old French, origin of ‘disguise.’


	8. Mademoiselle Mars

Days had gone by, and no word. As if the ever-turning hurricane of dancers had swept away all they wanted from him. He was left with only the barest memory of their intentions. For Montparnasse, this signalled a bitter return to the streets. Humbled. Sober from the silk lining and the gilt chalices of sparkling champagne. Defeated, he was left to his own devices. It was a cruel blow in Montparnasse’s mind. One he would not forget. When the boy had arrived at that decrepit shell on rue Copeau, it was empty. Gutted of any sign that anyone had ever lived there. The door wide open, as if the master of the house had stepped out for only a moment to never return. The rage he had felt subsided, replaced by a forlorn acceptance that the only man Montparnasse could truly depend upon was himself.

Paris was a living, breathing city by the time he emerged. Montparnasse stepped into the street in shame, fine-boned hands curled into deceptively delicate fists. He left it behind for the Rue de Seine, making for the river. There he would rally himself.

It no longer surprised the _menu peuple_ of Paris to see a boy in glorified rags walking with the posture of an aristocrat. Dignified young men were all too often reduced to rags. Name bearing no significance, only money. And how Montparnasse wanted money. Craved to hear that bell-like sound of coins colliding in his pocket as he walked. Instead, he heard only the idle chatter of shop-keeps. The soft pleas of the starved, trembling limbs outstretched. Hungry for the cool metal of a sous or two. Fingers grasping frantically at the air. Begging.

This February was cold, and with the crooked buildings rising high above, the weak winter rays of the sun rarely graced the damp stone below. Wolves ravaged the streets again as they did in the years of the revolution. But these wolves wore tailored suits, their fingers glinting with golden rings. They swept up the dregs, cast to the streets by their landlords, their families, they turned them to the factories for a pittance of a wage that would scarcely buy their bread. Bourgeoise, Montparnasse would spit. He had no pity for those below him. Only jealousy of those above. He both loved and loathed the sight of these men and their vaunted kindness.

 His emergence on the Quai Saint Bernardi was no cause for celebration. Even the vague warmth of the sun was nothing to take the sting from his skin and from his heart. He was aimless. His own kindness had cost him gold and jewels, frivolously spent on a dress for a brazen harlot. He would not make the same mistake again. He moved to the river’s edge, no longer knowing nor caring where his walk ended. He passed pretty flower sellers with bruises at their throats. Perhaps once they would have taken his eye. Once he had longed to see these plain creatures as desperate as he, so willing, so meek. Now they felt bellow him, it sickened him. They were wilted as the winter roses they peddled.

Laughter erupted, small voices rising and falling tumultuously. Montparnasse was too proud to pause when the first inkling of it reached his ears. But soon it grew louder, and louder still. Two startlingly blue eyes flashed in the field of his vision as he turned his head. Montparnasse flung out his arm, catching the small body before it could scurry away. The boy kicked, even reared to bite but Montparnasse let go of him before that could happen.

“Allow me to save you the trouble of checking my pockets, I have nothing.” He snapped, his face flushed at the offense. But the child, despite having been caught, was jubilant still.

“I thought so.” Gavroche rocked on the balls of his filthy feet. They were almost blue from the cold, but he didn’t seem to mind. Dirty hair splayed across his raised brow. A toothy grin gracing his lips. “I wondered when you might notice me. I followed you from the rue de Seine.” He announced proudly. He had given the game away with his laughter.

Montparnasse could hardly believe that the boy and his merry band of miscreants had been with him that distance, and his eyes narrowed. “You and your friends are thieves, and you are very fortunate I don’t report you for it.” He cast an ugly look toward the giggling children, and the sight of it hushed them.

Gavroche was less easily frightened. “It was your fault for leaving your hat undefended.”

“And my knife?”

“And your knife, yes. That was your fault, too.”

“I didn’t compel you to take those things.” Montparnasse frowned. Leaning against the high stone bank that divided the street from the river. It would not matter if he fell, though he could not swim. The Seine had been frozen since the December before.

“I s’pose not.” Gavroche conceded, hands behind his back now. Montparnasse spared him an incredulous glance when a thought occurred.

“It so happens that I’ve devised a way you can repay me for it. So, agree. And the debt will be cancelled.” Montparnasse crossed his arms loosely, a fine brow quirked in question.

“Repay you?” Gavroche laughed again. But he stopped abruptly at the sight of Montparnasse’s displeasure. The boy cleared his throat, and then gave a short nod. “What would you have me do?”

\------

Montparnasse stood before the glass again, only this time the reflection beside him barely reached the third pane. The frock occupying centre stage on this occasion was a turquoise hue. Washing both of their pale visages blue. Montparnasse watched on as the tailor flailed his measuring tape and complimented the women, riffling through his work with indecision. They would likely leave without pledging a sous, and likely would never return.

He waited until the staircase beyond the counter groaned and a round but warm woman with a heart shaped face descended. She was beautiful, figure full and soft. Her husband must do well enough. On her wrist, pressing dimples into her flesh. A bracelet of gold adorned with emeralds. Montparnasse’s reflection contorted. Anger distorting his sense momentarily.

“That. It belongs to me. I want you to take it back.” Montparnasse gestured toward her with a careless flick of his wrist.

“How will I get it?” Gavroche asked, his grubby little fingers pressed to the glass, more fascinated by the bright fabrics than he had been the people. Until he saw the bracelet. That gave him pause.

“How you get everything. You’ll steal it.” Montparnasse replied impatiently. He didn’t care to plan any further. He was tired of conceiving plans. The boy would get it. He felt confident. Leading Gavroche into the store silenced it.

The women no longer laughed and gushed about the shades against their skin. Complimenting each other, saccharine and insincere. _C’est Jolie!_ Instead, they turned their heads, faces quickly overcome with distaste. Montparnasse and Gavroche hardly flinched. Rather, the boy beamed. Wiggling his dirty toes against the cold boards underfoot.

Before the Madame could move them on, the tailor recognised Montparnasse. He interrupted his wife, the woman adorned with Montparnasse’s own prize and payment.

“Welcome!” He declared grandly, surging forward for this prince of paupers, hoping he might surprise him again with another shiny prize. One that might make it to the jeweller before his wife could take to it.  “How did your friend enjoy her dress?” He asked. Remembering the young woman, grime covered, standing on his stool to be measured.

“It was fine, but I’d like to see something else. Something in the red, perhaps.” Montparnasse said coolly, examining his hand more than the measure of the man he spoke with. Who rushed to serve, waving the girls away to take up the fabric they’d discarded. Montparnasse gave his accomplice a glance, and the boy gave a short nod. Slipping between the two men with ease. Soundless, as he made over to the counter. He was shorter than it, able to slip by without notice. Body crouched as he slipped beneath the table on the other side.

Madame was sitting now. His little hands did not struggle with the bracelet clasp. He seized it when her arm fell into her lap. Once in his possession he nipped at the casing with his chipped front teeth. Real Gold. In the meantime, she had taken a crisp Mille-Feuille from a neatly sealed box, too eager to notice her treasure was gone. The string fell to the floor before the boy. Gavroche felt his stomach clench at the scent. The sickly-sweet call of it distracting him. Why did she deserve such a treat when he’d barely enjoyed a scrap of bread in days? What was this bracelet to him? Montparnasse’s drawl was a distant memory. His stomach would not let him leave.  Instead he waited. When Monsieur called the woman rose, and Gavroche watched the train of her skirt drag before he darted out, seizing the pastry, taking one great bite from it. The sweetness of it pained his teeth but he was too hungry to give it due attention.

A squeal sounded from the young women now gathered in shock around a hat display. Gavroche looked at them, eyes shifting toward the tailor. He had forgotten them. Montparnasse whirled around, spotting Gavroche. icing and sugar on his red little nose. The pastry in one hand, the prize in the other.

The sound Madame made sprung them into action. Montparnasse surged forward, followed by Gavroche in short order, who refused to release the pastry or the bracelet. Instead, they spilled out into the street with both and ran. The anguished wails of the Madame and the indignant cries of the tailor chasing them. They did not slow for either.

It wasn’t until Montparnasse crested rue des Fossés that he realised he’d lost his accomplice. The frustration Montparnasse felt at being outwitted yet again was assuaged by a strange sense of admiration. He turned every which way to be sure. But there was no sight of him. Heart pounding, breath coming in agonisingly short bursts he wheeled around. Colliding with a hard body that sent him almost toppling toward the pavement.

“Steady on! I would loathe to see such a fine coat dragged needlessly through the mud.” A familiar voice chimed, strong hands grasping Montparnasse by the arms to steady him. He looked up, green eyes wide with surprise.

“Grantaire?” He accused, still entirely breathless. Fine face glowing with the flush of his earlier exertion. When his eyes fell on the man, his suspicions were confirmed. That happily crooked nose greeted him, a smile to match.

“Well, who else?” Grantaire asked. “Montparnasse, just the very person I was hoping to see.” He let go of the boy’s arms only to seize one again and drag him along the street again, back in the direction he had come. Grantaire was not alone. An older gentleman was walking alongside him, his calculating gaze fixed on Montparnasse curiously.

“It is always strange to see one of your muses in the flesh. But I see you haven’t exaggerated.” The man observed. Earning a chuckle from Grantaire, and a huff from Montparnasse. Who already felt rather accosted for having been dragged unwillingly into their stroll.

“And who are you?” Montparnasse demanded, ignoring Grantaire’s expression of amusement. He never minded Montparnasse’s abrasiveness.

“My patron, Baron Gros, of course. Have you not heard of him?” Grantaire asked. It was the gentleman’s turn to chuckle. Shaking his head, silvery mane falling neatly around his shoulders.

“I’ve not been a Baron since the fall of the Empire, Grantaire. Please.” Gros urged, giving his student an affectionate but weary swat against his shoulder. Grantaire was unperturbed.

 Montparnasse, on the other hand. Still in his finest burnish of youth, gaped. “You must be quite old.” He stated, either unaware of his rudeness or uncaring. Grantaire would assume the latter. Gros didn’t seem to mind. A fond little smile twisted his lips.

“I am.” He confirmed. Irritating Montparnasse to know he hadn’t concerned him. He turned his fine haughty face forward. Grantaire was simply dragging him and this old man listlessly toward the end of the street. Without so much as asking Montparnasse if he had any desire to accompany them.

“Where have you been?” Montparnasse asked his friend. If he could consider Grantaire a friend, he used that term somewhat loosely. Doubting it would ever hold substantial weight. Knowing where his priorities lay.

“Saint Petersburg! I was commissioned. You know, they still have nobility there. Plenty of Counts and the like willing to pay for a family portrait or two.” Grantaire announced proudly. That didn’t help Montparnasse in the slightest, and he didn’t look terribly impressed.  “Come, I’ll tell you all about it when we get there.”

“Get where?” Montparnasse questioned. His curiosity piqued just slightly.

“The Procope.” Grantaire replied crisply.

\---

The Procope was one of the oldest establishments in Paris, and a former haunt of Gros's patrons. One his teacher, and very good friend. The other an Emperor, a former Jacobin. In the tumultuous years following 1789 it had been the jewel of revolutionary ardour, a meeting place for the Cordelier’s. Montparnasse walked in the footsteps of the incorruptible one himself. The cafe had gained and retained a reputation as a gathering place for authors, philosophers, poets. A supreme house of gossip. Montparnasse had never been there. He hadn't so much as stopped to peer longingly through the windows at the intellectuals in their embroidered coats, spouting about their newest novellas. It was scarlet inside, bordered by golden edging, with distinguished portraits and ornaments adorning every surface. Montparnasse only noticed that the tables shone with silver wear. He may yet have need of it, unless he managed to find that child again before he dispensed with his piece and made himself rich.

Grantaire entered with the careless gaze of a man who frequented the café. Choosing his favourite table by the window, where he could easily observe all the comings and goings beyond it. Gros removed his hat and sat in the seat across from him, leaving Montparnasse to take the one beside him. It was in Montparnasse’s nature not to trust men of a certain age. They grew weary of the world and wanted only one thing. But the look Gros affixed on his student was mild, and Montparnasse was given a moment of pause. His eyes crinkled pleasantly at the corners when Grantaire spoke, and Montparnasse found him observing the two men more than he did their topics of conversation.

They were at ease, and familiar with one another. Grantaire spared any of them the trouble of ordering. He did it for them. And with that done they sank into what was for Grantaire and his teacher, a comfortable silence. Not so for Montparnasse.

“What have you brought me here for?”

“Can a friend not take another to lunch without warranting an interrogation?” Grantaire asked, clicking his tongue. “Montparnasse, this may surprise you to hear, but there are some people that do not want anything from you.”

A silence settled, and in it Grantaire took up the cup of wine they’d delivered and raised it to his lips, taking a sip. He sighed in pleasure. “Although, I am not one of those people on this particular occasion. In fact, the Baron and I have had a stroke of good fortune. We’ve secured three fairly good tickets to a play tonight, but as you can see, there are only two of us.”

“What play?” Montparnasse questioned. Already dubious. He didn’t trust Grantaire’s good will no matter how many times it proved innocent.

“The new Hugo production. You haven’t heard of it? It’s the only thing anyone who is anyone has been talking about since it made it past the committee months ago.” Grantaire replied. The name meant nothing to Montparnasse. He didn't know very much of plays or theatre. He had all the desire for that kind of taste but no money to acquire it. And so he remained indifferent. 

"It isn't the committee I would be afraid of if I were Victor," Gros interjected. Shaking his head. "It's his Doña Sol I would fear." The words meant nothing to Montparnasse, and so went over his head. But one thing was clear by the time hot plates were put before them. He would be accompanying Grantaire and his aged teacher to see this play. He had not set foot in the Théâtre-Français but he had watched for many years with envy when the crowd burst from the double doors, raucous with compliments for this performance or that. Speaking in tongues for all he could discern, about places and people. Meaningless names. Tonight he would be one of them. 

He shivered with anticipation, and he pocketed the butter knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! If you're reading this - congratulations, you've either just discovered my work, or waited this long for an update. I'm so sorry that it's taken an exceptionally long time to get to. But I haven't lost muse for this work. Actually, I've been run off my feet busy. In January, I was in Paris for three weeks, which was just incredible, if you'd like to see my pictures my instagram is g_mmae, feel free to go and have a look! I also had a very busy first semester of Uni, as well as a fairly painful surgery mid year. But I'm back! My health is improving, and I'm currently studying the French Revolution again under Peter McPhee. 
> 
> Anyway, enough ranting! I hope you don't mind my gratuitous addition of Gros and Hugo's Hernani to the story. I don't usually like inserting Hugo into the work but I was in the Victor Hugo Museum in Paris and they have a stunning painting of the Hernani Riot. The idea came from there, and I couldn't resist. Don't worry, the next chapter is already in the works and the Patron Minette will be back again.


	9. Paragon

The way to Grantaire’s apartment was still Fresh in Montparnasse’s mind as he was supposedly lead back there. Though none of his surroundings seemed to correspond with the map in his mind’s eye. This was not Montmartre. (Grantaire had said he chose that location for the quality of the natural light, which was better able to penetrate the wider streets on the far side. Any artist worth their salt, he said, lived in Montmartre. Montparnasse had commented dryly, that he ought not live there, then. He had been rewarded for his coldness by a kiss to his knuckles.) They were no longer accompanied by the older gentlemen, who had chosen to leave them at the Place Royale (once the Place de Vosges before the Bourbon Restoration) apparently to stop in on the playwright Montparnasse had heard so much about. Grantaire, who said he did not care to meet him rather brashly, hooked his arm with the dandy’s and instead, carried them both away. Waving carelessly over his shoulder before all his attention wandered to the boy by his side, a kindly, sad smile quirking the corner of his lips. He wasn’t looking. Montparnasse’s gaze had drifted to the statue dominating the centre of the square. Louis the thirteenth on horseback, regal in Roman garb, casting a shadow on them as they passed by.

The original had been created by Armand de Richelieu, erected in an attempt to stem the flow of blood left by the incessant duelling that dominated the centre of the square. But the Revolution had torn it down. Scattered the pieces. The one that kept silent vigil there now was a far more recent addition. Grantaire had been present at its inauguration. The city still wore the Republican scar visible on every corner. Grantaire tried to tell Montparnasse so, there were few things he knew more about than the destruction of great works of art under the men of 1794. Knowledge he used, perhaps to intentionally barb the more ardent revolutionaries among his friends.

 “I know the man who sculpted that.” Grantaire said, casually. Montparnasse leered, eyes bleeding scepticism as he turned them toward Grantaire, finally. “Cortot.” The older clarified, as if that would mean something to Montparnasse.

It did not. Instead, the young man simply adjusted the line of his coat, fingers curling more tightly against Grantaire’s arm. Nails biting into the flesh beneath the stiff cotton of his shirt. “Were you really in St. Petersburg?” He asked, remembering all too well the stories Grantaire had told him when first they met. Too fantastic to be true. Tales of courtesans in Venice, of Greek ruins, far flung unimaginably beautiful village women. 

“Of course I was.” Grantaire replied. “Why would I lie to you? I even brought something home for you.”

That garnered the boy’s full attention. Where before his gaze had been fickle, his focus inconstant, each malachite orb was fixed wholly on Grantaire, excitement lighting them. His smile a beam. “You did?” He asked, batting dark lashes. Earning another of those sombre quirks to Grantaire’s lips.

“I did. But perhaps I’ll keep it for myself, if you don’t believe me. After all, how could I have bought it for you if I were never there? Hm?” Grantaire mused, earning another tight squeeze to his upper arm from Montparnasse.

“You wouldn’t dare.” The younger clipped, genuinely affronted at the thought of his gift being withheld from him. It ought to have bothered Grantaire. How selfish the boy was. Instead it made him fonder. Montparnasse was a fearsome creature, he burned. And Grantaire, ever the moth and never the flame, was drawn to him. Though in part, because the intensity reminded him of another. Still, Montparnasse seemed to have forgiven him for the aggravation of that evil.

“I might, unless you behave.” Grantaire warned idly, the drab, ochre tone of his voice honeyed by affection as he caught the terrible grit of Montparnasse’s teeth in the corner of his eye.

They passed by Cortot’s Louis, exiting through the wrought iron gates toward rue Royale-Saint-Antoine.

“You painted portraits, you said?” Montparnasse asked, the softness of his tone unctuous; trying to do as he’d been told. Behaving so to receive whatever gift Grantaire saw fit to purchase him in Russia.

“Yes, I did. In fact I was commissioned for a very comprehensive family portrait of Fyodor Tyutchev and his lovely wife Ernestine.” Grantaire said, he framed their names in such a way that they seemed more like sounds than words to Montparnasse, as if they should impress him. Though his reaction gave nothing away, he simply sniffed, dark brows raised. It prompted laughter from Grantaire, who paused to cradle his middle, as if trying to contain it in his broad, scarred palms.

“Why are you laughing?” Montparnasse demanded. Body tensed. Reeling from his companion, already on the defensive. He loathed to be laughed at, no man made a joke of him. Already he flushed with shame at the thought he had missed something of vital importance. Something one of Grantaire’s clever little Sorbonnite friends would have gleaned in moments. Grantaire deigned to pat his hand, try to soothe the spark of irritation that drew Montparnasse’s strings tight.

“Nothing, nothing. I enjoy how difficult you are to impress.” Grantaire explained, simply. “Names and knowledge mean nothing to you. It is… refreshing.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed to discern whether he was being had. It seemed not. It no longer mattered as Grantaire guided him onward, and they soon reached the entryway of his apartment. Montparnasse did not see the headless angel standing in blind vigil above the door. Though his head remained upturned, gaze lingering in expectation before the low ceiling urged his gaze downward again, away from the empty plinth. Grantaire’s hand on Montparnasse’s back, drawn by the careful illusion of fragility the youth maintained, lead him toward the staircase. Sparse light penetrated the building at this level. Fissures of it carved paths through hairline fractures in the dusty glass that covered the window panes.

“This isn’t where you lived before.” Montparnasse said, turning in Grantaire’s grip to look at him. Catching a glimpse of that jagged, crooked-toothed smile as they passed through a scattershot, incandescent beam of cold sunlight.

“I moved.” Grantaire returned, his tone no more revealing than his words. His voice had take on a significantly husky quality, a notable wheeze, since stepping in from the street. Less the jaunty boom it was when they walked in tandem with the baron.

They crested the staircase, and Grantaire’s hand removed itself. He strode forward, drawing a key from the inner pocket of his coat. He glanced back at Montparnasse with that same protean leer, and then he opened the door, throwing it wide. He stepped inside, gesturing with an arm extended. And after a moment’s hesitation, Montparnasse entered.

The room still breathed _Grantaire_ from it’s center. But every other corner spoke to Montparnasse in very different terms. The wallpaper, peeling, still yielded traces of it’s original beauty. Faded wide mouthed smiles on faded faces, a country scene. Of fat, happy peasants, and their fat, happy landlords. Beneath which lay stripes of tricolour, beneath which were white bourbon fleur-de-lis. All of it turned backward, against itself, to reveal the bowing wood raw beneath. The apartment must have been beautiful once. Traces remained in the curvature of the feet on the armoire, the tapestry hung lopsided above the bed. A crooked portrait of a serious man in a serious ruff, staring out menacingly at Montparnasse. The table in the centre of the room was very reminiscent of the table that had taken up much of Grantaire’s first apartment. And Montparnasse approached it with fingers outstretched. He thumbed the papers strewn across it’s vast surface. Portraits, scenery. All in states of half-complete or abandoned entirely. Bottle of absinthe balanced precariously on a stack of gilt bound books, empty.

Grantaire watched from the window, and with the light behind him Montparnasse could see his expression sinking, steadily, until all that remained were the weary, haggard lines left by sleeplessness and alcohol. It was pathetic, Montparnasse thought. Far safer to think it thus than be tempted to pity, or even, feel sad for Grantaire.

“What do you think?” Grantaire asked. His eyes never leaving the younger, following him now to the bed, which was wider, and more luxurious than the one he’d had in his apartment before. Montparnasse dropped down on the end of it. Stretching his body, studying the texture of the moth-eaten, threadbare coverlet that still had much of it’s silver trim intact.

“I love it.” Montparnasse answered, voice as soft as the silk embroidery beneath his fingers, imagining the apartment as it had been, and not as it was. The grandeur, and he, spread out on this very bed, the grandest among it.

Grantaire approached silently. And after only a brief consideration, chose to sit in the vacant space beside Montparnasse, posture falling. Though he turned his head toward him, and he studied that fine, ashen face. He extended a hand, touching Montparnasse’s cheek to lift a layer of the street filth from his porcelain skin. Revealing the delicate complexion beneath. Montparnasse breathed a sigh that bordered on obscene, not equal to the touch Grantaire had bestowed, head tilted toward it. Seeking more, always more.

“Don’t.” Grantaire said quietly, mournfully. He was disappointed. He had broken the illusion of his innocence, the source of the muse. And Montparnasse didn’t understand. A furrow pressing between his dark brows.

“Why not?” He asked, determined to see in Grantaire what he saw in other men. Who, upon hearing his sigh, were hard pressed not to lay him down. All men were the same, cut from the same cloth. They desired with fever. Montparnasse had seen a passionate man in Grantaire’s work – where was that man now? Why did he shy away? Unable to accept that, perhaps Grantaire did not desire him, he pushed on, raising his own hand now to cup the older man’s cheek. He stroked his jaw with a bird-boned thumb. Expectant.

“Because this is not why I brought you here.” Grantaire made the fatal error of caving to Montparnasse’s touch all the same. And the younger crooned, cradling his face, drawing it nearer until it rested against his chest. His fingers wandered back through untidy, overlong curls. And Grantaire heaved a quivering breath. It caught the dandy by surprise. Froze him. Grantaire, unaware that his thief had turned to stone, wrapped his arms around him, curling fingers in the material of his coat as he fought for composure.

Montparnasse looked on, horrified as the artist dissolved.

“What’s wrong with you?” Montparnasse asked, all the satin in his tone now sullied by ill-disguised repugnance. It was far easier to be disgusted than admit he was afraid, a trembling in his fingers as they finally moved again, dragging through Grantaire’s hair again to comfort where he had never done so before. Had never learned. Never been taught. He had never seen Grantaire like this. Pensive, yes. Unusually quiet. Jovially resigned. Never like this.

Grantaire took no offense. Instead, a broken laugh erupted from him. He threw his head back, and Montparnasse saw tears in the corners of his eyes. And yet, he laughed. “Do you know, I’ve never been richer than I am now.” He told Montparnasse, his breath tasting of sweet wine.

“That’s all well and good.” Montparnasse blinked, his young face animated by his confusion alone. Eyes wide, full lips agape. Despite his momentary amusement, Grantaire’s spirits did not lift. Instead, he sank again.

“If you’re going mad, I’ll never forgive you.” Montparnasse sounded almost as if he were accusing him, his voice drawn taught. He had so few friends, felt so small as the larger man came to pieces in his arms. And he could do nothing but watch his broad shoulder’s shake with each bout. Montparnasse was a child again, frightened by the prospect of being left entirely alone in the world.  

\---

When he recovered, it was as if it never happened, Grantaire straightened, having gone still sometime ago. His head resting in Montparnasse’s lap while the thief’s fingers wound ceaselessly through his hair. Empty croons leaving his lips in couplets. The man didn’t speak, he carried himself to the armoire and threw the doors open, not caring enough to close them as he removed something from it. And then he turned, holding the article extended. A coat, as promised. The lapels were covered in a luxurious, dark fur, the remaining material dyed a rich midnight shade. The boy gasped, a hand over his heart.  

“It’s beautiful.” Montparnasse's words were mere breath, his heart thundering the nearer it came. The fine stitching, the richness of the dye, the fullness of the fur. As if the string in him had been drawn tight, his posture immediately straightened, welcoming the supple lining material as Grantaire draped the coat around the younger’s narrow shoulders. For the first time since they stepped off the street, Grantaire smiled.

“I told you. I thought of you the moment I saw it.” He confessed, smoothing the fur lapels as Montparnasse turned toward it, felt the softness of it graze his cheek, steal his breath again. He looked toward the cracked mirror on the opposite wall. It was clouded, but in it he could still make out his visage. It was lovely. And he was lovely in it.

“Oh, Grantaire.” Montparnasse’s tone possessed all the tenderness of a besotted lover. But he had yet to turn his gaze from the mirror.

“It’s a splendid thing, the difference a fine coat makes.” Grantaire was teasing, but Montparnasse was too enchanted to scorn him for it. “You must wear it tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, they'll get to the play in the next chapter! And the patrons will return. Which probably isn't very encouraging for any of you, given my update schedule. I won't say 'new year new me' . This fic has been going for years now. But I will do my best to have it up very soon. Thank you to all my faithful readers who have remained, and to new readers, who drudge through this work! Happy Valentines day.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to make this fic as accurate as possible, I have period accurate maps and have done extensive research on clothing and language, as well as historical context. Any questions don't hesitate to ask. 
> 
> I've been writing this fic since late 2015. It is now 2017 and as I edit this end note I'm in my apartment in Paris. I'd like to thank my readers, whether you just started following the fic or have been following it since I began writing. What started as a pet project has now become a full-time hobby! I devote a great deal of my spare time to researching and have been learning French along the way, and it's thanks to my commenters that have encouraged my penchant for historical detail that I'm as deep in the world of this fic as I am. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left a kind word or encouragement, long or short. Though those of you who have written long comments, I can't thank you enough, I see them all and they make my day. I know this is a niche fic, and my reader base may be small, but that only encourages me all the more, I feel like I'm updating for a little group of friends, it's lovely to share my passion for these characters and this setting with you all. Especially with how patient you all are. 
> 
> Any questions, shoot me one on tumblr! (http://embastiller.tumblr.com/)


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